


Desires

by Xie



Series: Only Time [3]
Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-18
Updated: 2014-05-18
Packaged: 2018-01-25 15:01:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 34,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1652825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xie/pseuds/Xie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will the past stop Brian and Justin from getting what they want?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Desires, Chapter 1

  
  
  
**  
****Desires, Chapter 1**  
By Xie

 _The first principle of success is desire – knowing what you want._ –Robert Collier

**Brian’s POV**

Justin’s most annoying quality, after his total inability to take constructive suggestions about how he should live his life, is his refusal to fight with me when I’m in a bad mood. He gets this amused look on his face, like I’m Gus, and goes off to his studio, or suggests I spend some quality time with the treadmill if he doesn’t feel like leaving the room we’re in.

Friday afternoon it became apparent that every single person in the Kinnetik art department needed to be fired or killed, and Cynthia and I both realized we were going to have to work the next day. So when the alarm went off Saturday morning, and Justin just grumbled and pulled the blankets over his head, I was in what some might have called a bad mood.

I was in the bathroom shaving when he stumbled in to piss. I particularly hated the way his hair looked good even when he woke up in the morning. It was very irritating.

“Justin?”

“Mmmph?” He didn’t even look at me when he answered.

“I was just wondering why you haven’t been blowing me as regularly as we agreed on in our prenuptial agreement.” I kept my eyes on the mirror and cut a swath through the shaving lotion on my face.

He didn’t say anything so finally I turned and looked at him. He was staring at me with a confused look on his face, and then he rubbed his eyes and ran a hand through his hair.

“Because ever since we started doing it raw, every time your dick gets hard you shove it up my ass?”

I rinsed off my razor in the sink and went back to shaving. “Oh. Yeah.”

Justin went back to the bedroom.

When I was done shaving, I pulled the towel off my waist and followed after him. He was lying diagonally across the bed, his face buried in the pillows, with the sheet lying across his legs and barely covering his ass. I was thinking he had to have arranged that. It was very artistic.

I was a little late going in to the office.

**Justin’s POV**

After Brian left, I got up, took a shower and got dressed, and went downstairs. One of the things I like best about Brian is that he makes coffee before I get up.

It was really warm for mid-May, and I was sitting out by the pool when I heard a car in the driveway. It was Daphne, trailing through the gate with her hair up in an explosion on top of her head, big pink-framed sunglasses, and a gigantic straw bag. Lime green. Which went really well with her orange dress and purple flip-flops.

“Jesus, Daph, you’re hurting my eyes.”

“It’s almost summer. It’s a theme.”

I needed more coffee.

“Where’s Brian?”

“He had to work, he’ll be back after lunch.” Or so he swore. I was skeptical.

“Isn’t Emmett coming to talk to you guys about the party?”

“Not until after lunch, although I actually told Em to come early and eat with us.”

“Oh, good, he can paint my toenails, I got this great new polish I want to try. Or… ” She looked at me hopefully.

“I don’t do toenails.”

She threw one of the little pillows from her lounge chair at me. “What good is it being your hag if you won’t do a simple thing like paint my toenails for me?”

I just looked at her.

She pulled a book, a can of diet coke, and some suntan lotion out of her bag and started to oil up her legs. “So, it doesn’t bug you that he works so much?”

“Brian and I have a deal. He only drags me out of my studio at midnight one out of every ten times he wants to, and I only tell him he’s working too hard one out of every ten times I think it.”

“You guys have more bizarre rules than anyone I know.” She stood up and pulled her orange dress off over her head, revealing a bikini in every tropical color and pattern known to the textile industry. I stared at it for a while, trying to figure out how such a small amount of material could have so many different colors in it.

Daphne stretched out on the lounge chair in the full sun, and glanced over at me where I was sitting in the shade of the awning on the back of the house. “It must be tragic being melaninly challenged the way you are.”

I threw her little pillow back at her. “I don’t think melaninly is a word.”

“Are we playing Scrabble and no one told me?”

I stood up and stripped off my t-shirt and then turned my back to her while I bent over and took off my jeans. I was wearing a navy blue bathing suit. A Speedo.

When I turned around she had pushed her sunglasses up and was looking at me. “You win. Your booty beats my melanin. Now shut up.”

I shrugged. “Works for me.”

“You should get a turquoise blue bathing suit.”

“Why?”

“You never wear bright colors anymore. Ever since you went to New York, it’s all dark dark dark. It’s like when you went through your black turtleneck Ethan phase.”

“You can give me fashion advice when you’re not wearing pink sunglasses and reminding me of youthful indiscretions.”

She shifted in her seat and slid her sunglasses back down. “So, what I wanted to talk to you about is, I settled on my thesis topic and I want to know what you think.” Daphne was starting her second year of a Masters in Public Health at Pitt in August.

I waited. She didn’t say anything. “Okay… what is it?”

“It’s ummm, ‘Bullying, Bashing, and Hate-Motivated Violence in High Schools’.”

“Okay.” I didn’t know what to say. It took me totally by surprise.

“Is that okay with you?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

She frowned. “I won’t do it if upsets you.”

I shrugged. “You should do it if you want to.”

“I might want to interview you, if you’d let me.”

I thought about it. “I don’t know.” She looked a little upset, which I didn’t mean for her to be. “It’s all right, Daph, you just surprised me. Let me think about it, okay?”

She bit her lip, nodded, and started to read her book.

A couple hours later, Emmett showed up. He came to the front door, so I went back in the house and let him in, and brought him out to the pool. Daphne was sitting up expectantly when we came outside.

“Daphne! You’re looking bright and colorful and… bright. And colorful.”

“I know, Em, but do you notice something MISSING?” She was holding her legs up and wiggling her toes suggestively.

“Oh my god! You have no toenail polish on! Who let you leave the house like that?” He looked horrified. He actually gasped.

“Justin refused to paint them for me.”

“Justin, it’s your sworn duty as a fag to paint your hag’s toenails.”

I rolled my eyes. “I have a note from my doctor. I have impaired fine motor skills.”

Emmett took the nail polish bottle from Daphne and sat down at the foot of her lounge and immediately started painting her toenails, muttering about the new generation of gay men and all our inadequacies.

I left them bonding over Daphne’s pedicure and headed out to the kitchen. It was a quarter to twelve. I called Brian on his cell.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m down at the river disposing of the bodies.”

“Okay, so, things aren’t going well?”

Silence.

“You won’t be here for lunch. It’s okay, I’ll see you when you get here.”

“Later.”

“Later.”

**Brian’s POV**

I got home around 3, and heard laughter from out by the pool. I went in the gate, and saw Emmett and Daphne splashing in the water, and Justin lying upside down on one of the giant lounge chairs, smoking a joint. I walked up to him and stood over his head, looking down.

He lifted up the joint to hand it to me and smiled. “Honey, you’re home.”

I took a drag, held it, and let out the smoke. I bounced my legs against his head where it stuck out over the edge of the lounge cushion. “Honey, you’re stoned.”

He nodded happily.

“Brian!” Daphne and Emmett waved from the pool.

“What is that on her head?”

Justin smiled up at me, still upside down. “Her sunglasses. And a green scrunchy thing in her hair. Why don’t you swim with us?”

I went upstairs and changed into a bathing suit, and went back out to the pool. Emmett and Daphne were standing near Justin, drying off.

“Ummm, hi Brian.” She was trying not to look at my bathing suit. She was blushing.

I smiled. “Daphne. How lovely you look, all wet and tropical.”

Emmett grinned at me. “Note her gorgeous purple toenails. Courtesy of moi.”

I lifted my eyebrows and glanced down at Justin. He was looking up at me. He was still upside down, and his feet were resting flat on the back of the lounge chair.

“I thought you wanted to swim?” He nodded but didn’t move. I sat down next to him and stretched my arm across his body and leaned over him. He stared up at my arm and chest right over his face. He licked his lips. I suddenly thought Emmett and Daphne should leave.

Emmett was always good at reading subtle body language. “Daph, let’s go get something to drink. In the kitchen.” They went giggling away, and I smiled down at Justin.

“What polite and accommodating guests we have.”

Justin just kept looking at my arm, and slowly began to run his hand up and down it. He was in the shade, but it was a hot day and his hand felt warm and dry.

I leaned a little closer and lowered my face down to his, and rubbed my closed lips back and forth over his. He brought his other hand up and rested it on the back of my neck, and I felt his tongue flicking at my mouth, and so I opened my lips and let him in.

He kept stroking my arm from my shoulder to my wrist, and then back up again. I glanced down his body while I was kissing him, and laughed. The head of his cock was peaking out the top of his bathing suit. I put my hand over it and pressed down. “You should probably roll over fast when they come back.”

Justin grinned at me. “What are you going to do?”

“Jump in the pool.” Then I pulled him up into my arms and kissed him hard, my hand slipping inside his Speedo and gathering his balls into my palm and then slowly sliding upward, my fingers closing tightly just under the head of his cock and squeezing. He arched up into my hand and gasped in my mouth.

And then I heard Emmett and Daphne coming back. I got up and dove into the cold water of the pool, and when I surfaced I looked over and saw Daphne and Emmett setting a couple of trays down on the table, and Justin lying on his stomach. I laughed. “Come on in.”

“In a minute.” He was glaring at me.

Emmett was pouring drinks into glasses. “Playtime’s over, boys. We made iced tea and lemonade, well, we didn’t make them, we poured them into pitchers. And we brought glasses. And we went through all your drawers and read your grocery list and talked about you behind your backs, and now we’re back.”

“Iced tea or lemonade, Brian?” Daphne held both pitchers in her hand and looked at me. I shook my head and dove under the cool water again, swimming to the far side of the pool and then surfacing close to where Justin was sitting. I gestured to him with my head, and he took a gulp of his iced tea and stood up, and came over and dove in.

Emmett and Daphne sat at the edge of the pool and dangled their feet in the water. Justin floated in the shady end of the pool, and I swam a few laps, listening to the water pounding in my ears. I finally lifted myself out and sprawled next to Emmett and Daphne.

Emmett and I talked for a while about the party plans, and when it started to get close to dinnertime we went into the kitchen and made burgers, and after we ate, Emmett and Daphne left.

Justin walked them out, and I went back in the pool and swam a few more laps. It wasn’t dark yet, but it was getting there, and the landscape lights had come on. Justin came back in the gate and I looked at him standing there at the edge of the pool. He pulled off his shirt and pants and bathing suit, and slipped into the water and waded over to me. He wrapped his legs around my waist and his arms around my neck, and I moved to where the water was just to my shoulders, deep enough to buoy us both up, but shallow enough that I didn’t have to tread water with an armful of blond.

Justin kissed my jaw. “What did you and Em come up with?”

“Nothing too definite. I told him no red, white, and blue, no flags, no patriotism. He was horrified I thought I had to say it.”

He smiled. “I love Em.”

“So, what did Daphne have to say?”

Justin didn’t answer right away. He had detached his hands from my shoulders and was pushing my swimsuit down under the water. He laughed when I kicked it off and it floated away. “Nothing too much, we just hung out.” He was holding onto my neck with one hand and jerking slowly on my dick with the other. I kissed him and he tasted like chlorine. I loved our pool.

I walked over to the side and lifted him out and set him on the edge, keeping his legs open and standing in between them. I bent over and kissed his stomach and started to lick at the head of his cock, and then I took it in my mouth.

Justin put his hands in my hair and leaned back while I buried my face in his crotch and sucked and licked at his cock until I felt it get incredibly hard. I grabbed the base in my fist and sucked on him, taking him as deep in my throat as I could. I tasted his come on the back of my tongue, and then he filled my mouth, and I swallowed and kept sucking and licking until he was done.

After he caught his breath he slid back into the water and wrapped himself around me again, and kissed me. “You taste like me.”

“I wonder why that is.”

He smiled at me and nuzzled my neck. It was dark now, and the underwater lights were on. I could see his skin all white against mine. “I guess your day is ending better than it started?” He kissed me again.

“It started pretty nice. It’s the middle I’d like to forget.”

“So basically, just, sex, fast forward, sex, the end?”

I smiled. “No, we need more sex.”

“Okay.” He hung there in the water, his arms and legs around me, floating inside my arms.

My cock was hard and standing up between us, and I wanted to fuck him, but I also wanted to stay in that water all night, just floating with him.

I pressed my forehead against his. “I want to fuck you.”

He smiled his most radiant smile. “Okay. I think I already said okay to that.”

“Okay.” We kissed some more.

“Brian?”

“Mmmm?”

“I’m pretty sure you said something about fucking me?”

“Okay.”

Justin laughed and untangled himself from me, and put his feet down on the bottom of the pool. He took my hand and pulled me over to the edge, and hoisted himself out. He turned around and knelt at the edge, and put his hand down to me. I used it to pull myself out, and then I pulled him up and over to the lounge chair.

My face was buried in the back of his neck while I fucked him. He smelled of sunscreen and chlorine. I fucked him slow and deep, waiting until he was ready to come again, until he started to push back into every thrust and I felt him angling so I’d touch him where he wanted to be touched inside. I started to slide my hand down to grab his cock, but he pushed me away. I kept fucking him, bent over him, the night finally cooling off, a little breeze drying the sweat on my back.

“Justin.” I breathed it into his ear, my hand moving back to his cock, his hand still pushing mine away.

I slowed down a little, and took a deep breath, and kept pushing into him, my forehead resting on his back. I licked at the sweat on his skin. I kept fucking him, slow and then faster, feeling everything starting to build up and burn inside me, uncoiling, and I groaned and started fucking him harder. He was so hot inside, and he made his ass tighten on me, and there was no way I was waiting another minute. I groaned again, “Justin,” and this time he let me grab his cock and start jerking on him in time with my thrusts. He put his hand over mine and moved it faster, and I heard him gasp, and felt him clamp down on me, and that was it. I slammed forward and then just stayed there, crouched over his back, coming into his ass while his come pumped out under him and all over our joined hands.

**Justin’s POV**

Brian pulled out of me and I rolled over underneath him, feeling all wet and full. He shifted his weight off me slightly, but stayed mostly covering me. There’s pretty much no time I’m happier than right after he’s fucked me, and his hand starts playing with my hair. He always seems so peaceful.

“Brian?”

He kissed my neck. “Hmmm?”

“So, Daphne wants to interview me for her master’s thesis.”

He lifted up his head and looked at me. “Why? What’s it about?”

“High school violence. Hate crimes. Bashing.”

Brian put his head back down and didn’t say anything. I sighed.

“What did you tell her?”

“I told her I’d think about it.”

“Do you want to do it?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Then don’t.” He kissed my neck again, and I curled into him. It was getting cold.

“We should go in.” I started to slide out from under him, and he stood up and we went inside.

He didn’t come up to bed right away, and I hesitated to go down looking for him. I lay there with my eyes open for a long time before I finally heard him coming up the stairs. He went into the bathroom, and then he came back out, and I heard him undressing. He dropped his clothes on the floor, and I knew when he got into the bed I’d smell scotch.

But he gathered me into his arms and held me while I fell asleep.

**Brian’s POV**

The next Friday I woke up without the alarm going off. I had to go out to dinner with clients and then take them to Babylon, and I was going to work from home for a few hours that afternoon. When I opened my eyes, Justin wasn’t there, the clock was missing, and he’d pulled the drapes closed. I had no idea what time it was.

I took a shower and went downstairs, and amazingly Justin had remembered how the coffeemaker worked, because he’d left a full pot. I knew there was a reason I’d picked him up under that streetlight. It was only 10, so I poured Justin a cup too and went to his studio.

He was at his computer, and he was chewing on his lower lip and staring at the monitor when I came in. I set down the mug next to his hand and he smiled at me briefly and then went back to his screen. I walked over to the easel, but he hadn’t worked on his current painting since the last time I’d looked at it.

Justin got up and stretched and came over to me, took the mug out of my hand, and put it down on the table. He kissed me. His mouth tasted like coffee and his hair smelled like shampoo. I buried my nose in it for a minute.

“So, this thing tonight – where are we going to dinner?”

I told him and he groaned. “That’s like, four hundred miles away.”

It was less than 80 miles away. “It’s where the clients want to go.”

“Eating in Pittsburgh isn’t good enough for them?”

I just looked at him.

He sighed. “Don’t you have to wear a jacket and tie there?”

“You don’t have to come.”

He reflected. “Will you let me drive?”

“Yeah, that’s gonna happen.”

“Your ego can’t take your clients seeing you let your hot young boyfriend drive your Corvette?”

“My heart can’t take seeing my hot young boyfriend drive my Corvette.”

“Brian?”

I was standing in the doorway. I needed more coffee.

“Did you ever think the day would come when the most fucked up part of our relationship was who was going to drive?”

I grinned. “Well, it depends on whether that’s a literal or metaphorical question.”

**Justin’s POV**

I checked with Brian at lunchtime to see if he wanted to eat anything, and he was sitting on the sofa with a lot of boards spread out in front of him. I walked over to look. They were ads for Richard Bohling’s club in New York. The one on top was a beautiful graphic, sharp and arty, an inky blue background and hard edges and a single laser-green slash across it. “That’s cool.”

Brian nodded. “Yeah. It is.” Then he pulled the next one out from under it and laid them side by side.

The field was mostly black, and in the lower right hand corner of the ad was a man’s back, not a bodybuilder’s back, but a beautifully muscled back, the kind of musculature every art student loved to draw. Classically beautiful. His arm was resting on a wall, also black, but textured. The light was focused on the man’s skin, and the photo was in color, but it almost seemed like it was in black and white, because there was very little color. His head was tipped back just a little, and his other arm was reaching around in front of him.

And that was it. And it was the fucking sexiest thing I’d ever seen, for no clear or obvious reason, it was just a feeling I got from it.

“Fuck.”

Brian smiled.

“Who did that? Not one of the people you had to fire or kill last week?”

“Yeah, actually.”

“Good thing you didn’t kill this one.”

“I know. It’s really hot.”

“Will he use it?” Sometimes clients were idiots, although Brian’s last ad for Richard’s club was edgy and hot, too.

“I think so.” He looked pretty pleased.

I leaned down and kissed the top of his head. “I’m going to eat lunch, do you want something?” I knew if we were going out to dinner, the most Brian would eat for lunch was a lettuce leaf and three radishes, but it was worth a try.

We ended up eating sandwiches in the kitchen.

“So, the clients tonight, what are they advertising?” I knew they had to be gay, because we were going to Babylon after. Some of his straight clients were a little uncomfortable when I was there. I don’t think it was because I was a man, but because I looked so young. I didn’t fit their image of who Brian was going to walk in with. But I noticed that for any business event that included his clients’ families, I was always invited. Brian had no patience at all for bullshit.

“A resort in Palm Springs.”

“How did they hear about Kinnetik?”

“They liked what we did for Redland-Moss.” That was a national campaign Brian had created himself for a hot furniture designer in Chicago that had run in a lot of gay magazines. I’d noticed how often furniture design ads still somehow merited the master’s touch, involving many hours spent in the designers’ showrooms doing research or, as I called it, shopping.

When we walked into the restaurant, I was ready for the double take followed by suppressed curiosity I usually got from Brian’s gay male clients when they met me. I got the same reaction whenever I did an interview about my art, too. I would sit in the bathroom sometimes watching Brian smearing anti-aging cream on his face and wonder if there was an anti-anti-aging cream I could buy. Brian would just roll his eyes and tell me that in few years I’d look back on this problem and miss having it. But I had a bad feeling I’d still be getting carded when I was 30.

I felt Brian’s hand at my back, and we walked over to a table in the bar where four men were waiting. One of them stood up and shook Brian’s hand. “Brian. Good to see you.”

“Eric, good to see you too. This is Justin Taylor, Justin, this is Eric Rohan.”

Eric introduced us to his partner, Mark, and to the other two men, who were his partners in the resort. I loved watching Brian with clients, and not just because he was sexy as hell in a suit. He was just so smooth.

After we went into the dining room, Eric turned to me with the usual indulgent parental smile on his face. “So, Justin, what do you do?”

I fought back the temptation to tell him I was a go-go boy at Brian’s club, and smiled my most charming smile. “I’m a painter and a comic book artist.” Eric’s smile switched from condescension to real amusement, and Mark leaned forward.

“What comic?”

I laughed. I’d seen that look on Michael’s face a thousand times. “Rage, do you know it?”

Mark sat back, stunned. “You draw Rage?”

Brian shifted in his seat, and I grinned. “I do.”

Eric rolled his eyes. “OK, we’ve lost Mark.”

Brian smiled and he, Eric, and his business partners went back to discussing the ad campaign for the resort, while Mark grilled me on the upcoming issue of Rage. Michael would have been proud, because I didn’t divulge one iota of information, despite Mark’s relentless interrogation.

After dinner Brian and I stopped at the loft to change for Babylon while the clients did the same at their hotel. I put on a white gauzy shirt and low-slung blue jeans, and Brian was wearing a black sleeveless shirt and black jeans.

“You always wear the same thing.”

Brian glanced at himself in the mirror. “This is a brand new shirt, I’ve never even worn it before.”

“God, Daphne said I was in a rut, but you’ve got to go shopping, Brian. I’m going to throw all your black shirts out if you don’t go buy something else.”

He went to the closet and took out a red sleeveless shirt. I smiled. Brian looked hot in red.

Of course he also looked hot in black, but I didn’t mention that.

“Better?”

I walked over and slipped my arms around him inside the still-unbuttoned shirt. I kissed his chest. “Hmmmm. Much better.”

When we got to Babylon, Brian told the doorman to have someone find us when his clients showed up. We pushed through the crowd to the bar.

I was leaning with my back on the railing on the second level, and Brian was standing right in front of me, his legs spread wide so we were closer to the same height. I was holding both our beers and he had his hands on my waist under my loose shirt and was kissing me.

Between kisses I asked him something. “Do you think people will ever stop obsessing on how young I look?”

He pulled back and stared at me for a minute. “You know, you don’t look THAT young anymore.”

I snorted. “Yeah, by which you mean I don’t look as young as when we met, when I looked 14?”

“You didn’t look 14. Don’t make me feel like a pervert.” He kissed me again.

“I wouldn’t mind so much if it was just your pervy clients dying to know if I’m old enough to vote. What I mind is, every time I get interviewed about my painting, the interviewer looks surprised to see me, asks about my age, makes a big deal over it.”

Brian looked at me thoughtfully. “This is a marketing problem.”

I laughed. “Yeah. It is, actually.”

“We should talk about ways to fix that.”

I gave him a look, but just then one of the security guys came over and told Brian his clients were here. We went downstairs and met them at the door, and Brian gave them the tour. Well, not the complete tour. He left a few corners for them to discover on their own.

We were all standing at the upstairs bar, and Brian’s arm was around my waist. I leaned into him just a little.

“How long have the two of you known each other?” It was Mark, smiling at us.

I was just glad he hadn’t asked the unanswerable question about how long we’d been together, which would have entailed a long discussion about the inherent limitations of the spoken word, specifically, a treatise on the origins and definitions of the word “together.”

“Six years.” I waited while everyone mentally deducted six years from his idea of how old I was, and then I smiled brightly at no one in particular. I could feel Brian trying not to laugh next to me.

**Brian’s POV**

Justin turned around to the bar and asked the bartender for another drink. I leaned my elbows on the bar next to him, biting my lips not to laugh. “Just remember: It’s a marketing problem.”

He glanced over his shoulder, probably checking for Eric and the others. “You’re not ugly, didn’t you ever have this problem?”

I gave him a death glare. “NOT UGLY? I’m drop-dead gorgeous.”

“OK, you’re drop-dead gorgeous, didn’t you ever have this problem?”

“No, because I’m not cute and blond and cuddly.”

“I’m not cuddly.”

I kissed him. “You are completely blond and cuddly.”

Justin was trying out his version of the death glare. He was pretty good at it. “OK, so, we’re not going to have a discussion about the word ‘cuddle,’ right?”

I shook my head. “Dance with me.”

I stopped and told Eric and the others that we were going to dance, and then I followed Justin down the stairs.

He started to dance and I pulled him against me and kissed him. I could feel him smiling against my lips. I wasn’t sure what the song was, something electro and repetitive, the kind of music I like better when I’m on drugs. Justin loved anything with a beat, and he had his eyes closed and was moving against me in time to the music. I felt his hair brush against my face.

“Should I cut my hair?”

“What?”

“Does the long hair make me look younger?”

Fortunately, I didn’t have to lie. “No, you look younger with short hair.”

He put his hands on my shoulders, and smiled up at me, his hair falling across his eyes. I reached out and pushed it back. And then I kissed him. “You know, I’m not getting any more gay clients.”

Justin laughed. “Why not?”

“They keep wanting to come to Babylon, and then I can’t drag you into the backroom and fuck you against the wall.”

He nodded. “Or even frottage me on the dance floor.”

“Exactly. It’s wrong.”

“We could use the office.”

I shook my head. “The manager is here tonight.”

“Fire him?”

I sighed. Then I smiled. “On the other hand….”

“The other hand?”

“Fucking in public is, after all, one of my foundational values.”

Justin nodded. “It really is.” Then he started running his hands over my abdomen under my shirt, and tickling my nipples with his fingertips while he kept kissing my neck.

I tipped my head back and let Justin’s tongue trace my throat and jaw. He had one hand on my back and the other on my belly, and he was getting closer with every stroke of his fingers to dipping under my waistband.

“You know, Brian…”

“Hmmmm?” His fingers were back on my nipples, and I had mine in his hair, and I was trying to remember what we’d been talking about.

“You were just complaining the other day I wasn’t blowing you often enough.”

“That’s true. Although as I recall, you offered a compelling defense.”

He slid his hand down between us and pressed his palm against my cock. “Yeah, but like you said, it’s a matter of principle.”

I took his hand and pulled him into the backroom. We went down the hall and around the corner, and I leaned against the wall and smiled at him. He smiled back, leaning against me while his hands unbuttoned my shirt and unfastened my jeans. I started thinking this might be my new favorite shirt.

He was kissing my neck and throat and jaw, biting and licking at me between kisses, and I brought my hands up to the sides of his face and kissed him hard on the mouth. His hands were sliding up from my waist to my chest, then smoothing down over my abs and my belly, and I rested my hands in his hair as he slid down my body, his tongue leaving a wet trail on my skin.

It was strange, because getting sucked off by Justin was definitely one of the sexual wonders of the world, but even at the moment his lips closed over my cock and I felt his tongue start to lap at that one spot that drove me insane, I realized that if Babylon hadn’t had an inviolable “condoms required” policy, I’d have stopped him in a second to get my cock up his ass.

That made me laugh a little, and Justin pulled away from my cock and looked up at me. He was grinning and I figured he probably had a pretty good idea what I’d been thinking. He went back to my cock and after a few minutes of his lips and tongue and hand and throat, I was grabbing onto his hair and not thinking anything at all. I came into his mouth and felt him swallowing, and I stood there panting while he slid back up my body, kissing me all the way, and then nuzzled into my sweaty neck.

I held him close and kissed him, running my hands up under his shirt and then down to his waist. His jeans were open, and I pushed him back a little and laughed. “You little shit.”

He smiled. “I couldn’t wait.”

We buttoned up our jeans and Justin fastened two buttons on my shirt. I started to do the rest but he shook his head, and I left it the way it was.

We danced for a couple more hours, and Justin promised Mark autographed copies of the new issue of Rage as soon as it came out. Eric was leaning against the catwalk railing while the two of them talked about comics, and he shook his head. “Well, this will live forever as Mark’s favorite business trip of all time.”

“I’m glad he enjoyed himself.” Justin looked over at us and smiled, and I felt myself smiling back.

“How did you and Justin meet?” This was the problem with socializing with clients.

“We met here.” It was sort of true.

“Was he old enough to get in here six years ago?”

I didn’t answer right away, and then I shrugged. No wonder Justin was touchy about his age.

After we said goodnight to everyone, Justin and I walked outside to the Corvette. I had my arm around his shoulder. It wasn’t even really summer yet, but the night was hot and sticky. I kissed him before we got in the car, and he leaned into me and kissed me back. His eyes were sleepy and he fell asleep before we got home.

The next day at noon Justin was still sound asleep. I knelt down next to him on the bed and nuzzled his neck. He was lying on his stomach, and he turned towards me and smiled with his eyes closed. I kissed him. He felt warm and open, like he always did.

I stretched out alongside him, on top of the duvet, and he got his arms out from under the covers and put them around my neck. I kissed him for a long time, our tongues sliding around each other’s mouths.

He gave a contented sigh and nestled his head under my chin. “Mmmmm, good morning.”

“It’s noon.”

He just smiled, his eyes still closed. “What time did we get home?”

“After 3.”

He opened his eyes. “Why are you dressed?”

“I’ve been up for three hours. You wouldn’t wake up, I had to jerk off in the shower.”

“You jerked off without me?”

He was pouting. I kissed him. “I pretended it was your mouth.”

“You had an imaginary blowjob?”

I nodded.

Justin grinned at me. “Want a real one?”

“Justin?”

“Hmmmm?” His mouth was on my belly while his hands unfastened my jeans.

“Justin, have I ever told you no when you …” his lips and fist closed on my cock at the same time and I gasped … “wanted to blow me?”

He didn’t stop what he was doing to answer me. And when he was done, he came up for a kiss, his mouth all red and swollen, looking full of himself. I tasted my come in his mouth, and he put his head down on my shoulder. “You know what?”

“What?” I knew what was coming.

“I’m starving.”

I laughed. “I’m shocked.”

“Let’s eat and then you can fuck me out by the pool.”

“Okay.” I loved the weekend.

**Justin’s POV**

Brian and I managed to do nothing but fuck, sleep, and eat on Saturday, but by Sunday we were both twitching so he headed for his computer and I went to my studio. I was still trying to plan all the paintings I needed for the show at the end of the year, so I sat down at my computer.

After a couple of hours, Brian stuck his head in to tell me that Ted was stopping by with some work. Between Ted and Brian, it was hard to say who was the bigger workaholic. So when I came out of the studio and went looking for food, I wasn’t surprised to find them both in the media room, with Ted’s and Brian’s laptops both open on the coffee table.

“Anyone want food?”

Ted looked up. “Hi, Justin. Is it dinnertime?”

“Pretty much. Brian?”

He didn’t move his eyes from the laptop. “Dinner. What do we have?”

“I have no idea. Why don’t we all go out in the kitchen and find out?”

Ted looked at me in surprise, but Brian just said, “Okay, gimme a minute.”

I went into the kitchen, and Ted came along. We stood next to each other looking into the refrigerator.

“How do the two of you survive out here with no one who delivers?” There was nothing but beer, water, and some brown guacamole.

“We buy food.” It was Brian in the doorway. “It’s just that no matter how much we buy, Justin eats it all.”

I smiled. “Pizza.”

“You can get pizza delivered out here?” Ted was skeptical.

I nodded. “Yeah, or we’d have starved a long time ago.”

“Justin won’t cook, he says it makes him the wife.”

“Brian won’t cook, he can’t figure out how to use anything in the kitchen other than the coffeemaker.”

“Which you should be grateful for, or you’d still be staggering around this house mewling for a Starbucks.”

Ted was looking back and forth between us. “God, you both are saving two other people a lifetime of misery and pain.”

Brian and I just grinned at each other. Then we ordered pizza.

I spent the next day working on Rage. Michael and I had agreed to finalize the next issue by the end of June, and I wanted to get it out of the way so I could concentrate on my paintings. It was around 4 when I finished that day’s set of drawings, and I drove out and met him at Red Cape. We were sitting in the back of the store while he looked at them. His cell phone rang after I’d been there about an hour. He mouthed “Brian” as he answered.

“What’s up?” He listened for a minute, gave a short laugh, and then handed me the phone.

“Hey.”

“I’ve been calling, where’s your cell?”

I checked my pocket. “I must have left it in the car.”

“Okay, well, I wanted to see if you and Michael wanted to meet me and Ted at Woody’s.”

“How about the diner?”

Brian laughed. “The diner, then Woody’s.”

I looked at Michael. “Diner, than Woody’s? Brian and Ted?” Michael shrugged and nodded.

“Okay. See you there.”

“Later.”

“Later.”

Michael called Ben and left a message on his cell, and then we walked over to the diner. We were having a heated discussion of the finer points of one of Rage’s superpowers when Brian slid in next to me and grabbed the menu out from in front of me without interrupting. Like Brian needed to see the diner menu. Ted sat down next to Michael.

“Hey, Ted.” Michael gave Ted a kiss on the cheek and then turned back to me. We kept arguing for a little while, and then Brian excused himself to go to the bathroom.

Michael was looking a little confused. “You two didn’t even say hello or kiss or anything.”

Ted laughed. “Are you actually saying Justin and Brian don’t engage in enough public displays of affection? You should come to Babylon more often.”

I smiled and then Brian came back out. He stopped and looked at us before he sat down. “What’s so funny?”

Ted answered. “Michael thinks you and Justin don’t kiss in public enough.”

Brian leaned down and pulled me up into his arms and reamed my mouth out with his tongue, and then let me slip back down to my seat. He grinned at Michael. “Can I get you anything else?”

He slid back in next to me, and held my hand. Anything to make Michael happy.

“So, is Rage saving the world, or just Gayopolis? Again?”

Michael started telling Brian the plot of the next issue. I could tell Brian wasn’t really paying attention because his finger was gently circling the inside of my wrist. Or maybe it was that I wasn’t paying attention anymore, because he asked Michael something in what sounded like a normal tone of voice.

The waitress came and took our order, and after she left, Brian still hadn’t let go of my hand. That wasn’t really like him. In fact, he reached across me and took my other hand in his for a second, and then let it go. I was really confused by this and gave him a look, but he was talking with Ted and Michael and didn’t seem to notice.

He let go of my hand when our food came, and we were all joking around when I saw Ben come in the diner door. He leaned across the table to kiss Michael hello and we all burst out laughing. He looked confused. While Ted was explaining it to him, I noticed Brian had picked up my hand again and was looking at it, rubbing at a bluish spot at the base of my thumb. I curled my fingers over and pulled my hand away.

While we were walking to Woody’s, Brian dropped back from where he was walking with Michael and bumped shoulders with me. I bumped him back and then he took my hand again. But instead of just walking holding hands, which would have been bizarre, he held my hand up so I could see it.

“Is this paint?”

I shrugged and looked at it. I rubbed at it with my finger but it didn’t come off. “I’m not sure, I never noticed it before.”

“Were you drawing at the store with Michael?”

I pulled my hand away. “Yeah. Stop it Brian, my hand is fine.” I was talking quietly, not wanting anyone to hear.

“It’s a lot colder than your other hand.”

“Can we talk about this later?”

He frowned but didn’t mention it again. When we got to Woody’s, Ted and Ben and I got a table while Brian and Michael went for drinks.

I was glad we’d driven in separate cars, because I didn’t want to be interrogated about my hand on the way home. I hadn’t noticed that bluish mark before, and scrubbed at it some more before concluding it really wasn’t paint.

Brian was home before me, most likely because he mentally doubled all speed limits when driving the Corvette. He wasn’t lurking in the hall. He was too smart for that. He was lurking in the kitchen.

“Okay, the hand.”

I sat down at the table and held it out to him. He looked at it carefully and held both my hands at the same time. My left hand really was a lot warmer than the right hand.

“I never noticed the blue mark before, I think it just started.”

Brian frowned, and then let both my hands go. “Well, you should ask your doctor about it. Have you been going to acupuncture?”

I nodded. “I’m going Thursday. I’ll ask her about it, too. But honestly, my hand is fine, it’s been much better. I’d have told you if it wasn’t.”

Brian nodded, and then went out to the media room and turned on the TV. I went to my studio, but I stopped at the door and turned and went back out to Brian. I sat down on the sofa next to him, and reached out and took a swallow from his glass. He raised an eyebrow.

“I don’t feel like working.” He put his arm around me and I leaned my head on his shoulder. We channel surfed a little, but after a while I took the remote away and told him to pick something or I was turning it off.

“Turn it off.”

The silence hung for a second. “Brian, please don’t make a big deal over my hand. I probably just banged it on something.”

“I know. It’s not that.” Which meant it was something.

“Well, what, then?”

He shrugged. “That thing of Daphne’s, are you going to do it?”

“I don’t want to.”

“Then don’t.”

“You can’t always have what you want.”

“Thank you, Mick Jagger.”

“I mean it. I don’t want to talk to her about it, but I don’t want to tell her no, either.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s kind of her memory too. I feel like it’s at least partly her business.”

Brian was quiet for a minute, and I could tell he wanted to get up, but he didn’t. “It’s nobody’s business but yours, Justin.”

“And yours.” This time he did get up, and took his empty glass with him. He went and poured another drink. But he didn’t say anything.

I sighed. “Anyway, I haven’t answered her yet. I’m still thinking about it. And I’ll see the acupuncturist Thursday and if this bruise or whatever isn’t gone, I’ll go to the doctor. Now let’s go to bed.”

He just nodded. “I’ll be up in a little while.”

I almost went up without him, but I went over to him instead. I walked right up to him, ignoring the death ray, force field, and electrified wire. “No. Come on up now.” I rested my head against his chest and put my arms around his waist. When he was like this, talking to him was totally useless. So I didn’t bother, just keeping my body pressing against his, and waiting to feel that little release of tension that meant he was going to go with me.

And in a few minutes he relaxed, and I took him upstairs. Most nights I fell asleep before Brian did, but that night I lay there with my eyes closed, waiting to hear his breathing change. And when it finally did, I fell asleep, too.


	2. Desires, Chapter 2

  
  
  
**  
****Desires, Chapter 2**  
By Xie  
 _It is said that desire is a product of the will, but the converse is in fact true: will is a product of desire_. -Denis Diderot  
 **Justin’s POV**

I walked into the kitchen and Brian was standing at the counter eating melon chunks out of a plastic container. He was wearing half-unbuttoned jeans and no shirt, which was probably going to make it fairly hard for me to concentrate on cooking.

“This is dinner?” I put my bag down on the counter and picked up the lid of the container. Eight ounces of cantaloupe, $3.49 from Whole Foods Market. “Brian, you paid $3.50 for eight ounces of cantaloupe? You could have bought a whole cantaloupe and cut it up yourself for a fraction of that.”

Brian looked at me as he speared another chunk with a fork. “Yeah, and then I’d have had to cut it up myself.”

“Jesus, Brian.” I started emptying my bag.

“What culinary delights did you bring home, dear?” He put down the now-empty melon container and started poking at the plastic bags I was spreading out on the counter. “What the fuck is this?”

I sighed. “They’re Chinese herbs my acupuncturist wants me to use.”

He gave me a look like I’d just said they were dried elephant testicles. Which I’m fairly sure they weren’t, she’d sworn to me it was all just herbs.

Brian opened one of the bags and sniffed at it. “This smells like cinnamon mixed with something dead.”

I grabbed the bag out of his hand and closed it. “Go eat your seven dollars a pound cantaloupe and let me eat something. She says that I need to reduce my stress and eat regular meals.”

Brian rolled his eyes. “Yeah. Lack of regular meals is your problem. Where did you find this quack?”

“Search your memory, maybe it’ll come back to you. Does ‘You should try it, it can’t hurt’ ring any bells?”

Brian looked skeptically at the herbs I had put into a pot of water. “OK, maybe I was wrong. Justin, that shit stinks. And I thought we tried this once. The magic tea?”

I ignored him and turned the flame on under the pot, and went to the refrigerator and got some cold pizza out and ate it while I waited for the water to boil.

Brian threw the melon container and the empty herb bag in the trash, and got a beer out of the refrigerator. The guy was having cantaloupe and beer for dinner and attacking me for making herb tea. Then he came up behind me and nuzzled my neck, so I decided to nag him about his eating habits some other time. I turned around and wrapped my arms around him, and he put his chin on my head and we stood there for a second.

“So, what else did the voodoo priestess say, besides prescribing magic tea, stress reduction, and regular meals, by which she probably didn’t mean leftover pizza?” He had put his beer down and was gently rubbing my back.

“Mmmmmmm.” I didn’t feel like talking while he was doing that. “She said my partner had to give me massages every night.” His hands were working the muscles in my shoulders.

“What did she say about your hand?”

I lifted my head up from his shoulder and turned back to the stove. The herbs weren’t boiling yet, but they were getting close, and starting to smell pretty strong. “This is disgusting.”

“Not as disgusting as the shit you made me drink. And I use the term ‘shit’ in its literal sense.”

“Desperate times called for desperate measures.” I grinned at him over my shoulder and he glared at me.

“Talk.”

“She said my hand is fine, my grip strength is improved, the symptoms are related to my using it more, but that if I’m worried, I should see my neurologist.”

“And are you worried?”

“No, but since you obviously are, I made an appointment.” I was overdue for a checkup anyway. “But it’s not for almost three weeks, and even that was a cancellation. There is clearly a shortage of neurologists in Pittsburgh.”

“Something to consider the next time you make a career choice.”

“It was that or art. A close decision.” I was pouring the herbal concoction through a strainer into a mug. I sniffed at it before tasting it. My acupuncturist had sworn it would taste better if I drank it really hot. It was a little bit sweet, but it was sort of like drinking dirt. It was too hot, so I stood there blowing on it. I looked at Brian and he was watching me and laughing. “Oh, shut up and go get on your treadmill.”

He shook his head. “I’m going swimming.”

“You have to wait a half hour after eating.”

“I thought maybe you’d blow me while my food was digesting.” He took a swallow of his beer, and I took a swallow of my dirt tea. Then I drained the cup. And almost gagged.

“OK.”

He looked surprised. “That was easy.”

“Anything to get that taste out of my mouth.”

“Wow. I might actually have just lost my desire to have sex with you.”

“I worry about that constantly.” I had my arms around his neck and I could feel his half-hard cock pressing into my stomach.

**Brian’s POV**

I could tell Justin was tense when he walked into the kitchen. He didn’t seem to want to talk, so after I extracted the bare minimum information necessary to figure out what the fuck was going on, I decided to just focus on fucking the tension out of him. He seemed happy enough with that plan.

We started in the kitchen but he dragged me out of there into the media room, probably to get away from the tea fumes. Chinese medicine would be a lot more popular if it smelled better. He pushed me back over the arm of the sofa and then pounced on me, unfastening the rest of the buttons on my jeans, and pushing them down just enough to get his mouth and his hand on me.

Justin's tongue was all over my cock, swirling on the head and then the sensitive spot under the rim, and then down the shaft, and back to the head, all without ever breaking the rhythm of his hand or his lips sliding up and down it. And once he'd licked and kissed every inch of me, and had me arched under his mouth with my hands in his hair, pulling and thrusting up at him, he took his hand away and dove all the way down on me, taking me deep into his throat and humming and swallowing around me while I came.

He crawled up to my face. I had my eyes closed but I knew he was grinning. Little shit. But the truth was, so was I. I opened my eyes a few minutes later, and he was looking right at me, lying across my chest with the exact smile I’d predicted. So I grabbed him and flipped him over, pinning him to the sofa under me, kicking my jeans the rest of the way off.

He didn’t stop smiling.

I dragged my tongue from his jaw to his throat, and then bit into the curve of his neck where it met his shoulder. He hissed and arched up, but I pulled my hips back and didn’t let him rub against me. I had my weight on my arms, and kept sliding down him with my mouth, until I felt the soft skin of his belly, and his cock pressing against my face.

I started to lick it, big long strokes from the bottom to the top, and then all around the head. Justin was still lifting his hips up, following my tongue, and I grabbed his cock hard in my fist. I felt a little gush of pre-come in my mouth when I did it, and he moaned.

I took my mouth off his cock. “Is this what you want, Justin?” I glanced up at him and he shook his head. “Do you want me to fuck you?”

He looked down his body at me, his eyes glassy. “Yeah. Do it.”

I kept licking his cock, but I wet my finger and slipped it into his tight hole. I bent it and wriggled it around, and felt him relax around me. I locked my lips just under the head of his cock while I brushed my finger against his prostate, and got another rush of pre-come in my mouth again, and felt his cock get harder in my hand.

He started to pull away from my mouth and turn over, but I didn’t let him. I put one of his legs over the back of the sofa, and scooped the other one over my arm, and knelt between his legs. He had his head back with his arms behind it, watching me.

I leaned over him and got the lube out of the drawer of the table next to the couch. Justin smiled while I lubed my cock, and then I put just a tiny bit in his ass. He lifted his eyebrows at me, and I just smiled, and pressed the head of my cock against his hole. “It’s enough.” Then I pushed in and he groaned and covered his face with his arms.

I let him stay like that while I eased my way into him. I still wasn’t used to the tightness and heat and the texture, and was starting to think I never would be. It was just as well I didn’t have him looking into my eyes while I went into him. It made it too intense sometimes.

Once I was inside, and felt him relax enough so I could move in him, I shifted forward and put my weight back on my arms. His legs wrapped around my waist, and I pushed his arms away from his face. I smiled at him, and he smiled back, and kept his eyes open and locked onto mine while I started to move inside him. I watched his face while I deliberately moved my cock over his prostate, and saw him bite his lip. His eyes closed for a second, but he opened them again when I said his name.

He kept looking at me, and I kept moving in him, and every time his eyes started to flutter closed or his arms would start to move back towards his face, I’d say his name and he’d moan and look at me again. I could feel my orgasm starting to build and I knew his was too, because his cock was jerking between us. I dropped my head down and kissed him, and he grabbed my neck with one hand and let his other one go to his cock and start jerking himself off.

I shoved into him more deeply then, and he moaned into my mouth, and I pulled back and fucked him hard, letting him cover his eyes with his free arm and even closing mine. And I came inside him, and felt his come spurting out onto my stomach and chest, and finally hung over him, breathing hard, while his legs dropped down on either side of me.

He moved his arm off his face and I saw his eyes again, and he smiled. I kissed him and he shifted to his side, and I slipped down between him and the back of the sofa, and kissed him some more.

“Was that what your acupuncturist meant by stress reduction?”

He laughed a little and nuzzled my face. “I don’t think that was quite what she had in mind, but I’m all relaxed now.”

“Good.”

“I love you, Brian.” He had his eyes closed when he said it.

I kissed him on the side of his face. “Me too.”

Justin opened his eyes and smiled at me.

**Justin’s POV**

I slept in the next morning. I didn’t feel like working on Rage, even though I knew I had to. Michael and I were getting together to go over a few changes that afternoon, and the end-of-June deadline was getting close. So I pushed myself to put in a few hours in the studio, until my hand started cramping. I switched to the computer to finish.

When I got to Michael’s store he seemed distracted, but it was pretty busy so I just went in the back and spread everything out and waited for him to finish with his customers. He finally put a “be back soon” sign on the door, locked it, and came and sat down on the floor next to me.

Twice I went to make changes to the drawings, but my hand wasn’t cooperating, and the second time, Michael took the pen away from me. “Brian would kill me if I let you draw when your hand was doing that.”

“Yeah, well, neither you or Brian can do this.”

Michael normally would have reassured me at that point, but he just nodded and went back to the drawings. He kept my pen, though.

After we were done, I started stacking the drawings back up and putting them in my portfolio. “Mel and Lindz and the kids are coming out this Saturday to swim, why don’t you and Ben come? And Hunter, if he’s around.”

“Maybe. I’ll ask Ben.” He still sounded distracted.

I was at the door and turned to say goodbye, and got a good look at his face. “What the fuck’s wrong, Michael?”

He shrugged. “Nothing, I’m fine.”

“Okay, you’re scaring me with the Brian Kinney impersonation.”

Michael laughed. “You play dirty.”

It was my turn to shrug. “What’s going on?”

He walked away from me, over to the counter, and started restlessly moving things around. He had his back to me. “It’s really nothing much, I don’t want to make a big deal out of it. Ben’s pancreatic enzymes started going up again, they took him off his HIV meds to see if they’d go down, they did, but his viral load started going up again, and now they’re trying another drug combination that should be easier on his pancreas.”

I didn’t say anything for a second, and could actually feel my brain trying not to take in what Michael had just said. I didn’t think for weeks or months at a time about Ben having HIV. Which was easy to do since he looked like a Greek god, just like all the guys in the ads for HIV meds. I sighed.

“I’m really sorry, Michael. Is he OK now that they’ve changed the meds?”

“Yeah, he’s fine, his viral load went right back down and his enzymes are still normal. I just, get worried. I don’t know.” He had stopped moving things around on the counter and turned around to face me.

“Have you told Brian?” I couldn’t imagine Brian wouldn’t have said something to me, but you never knew with him and Michael.

But Michael shook his head. “No.”

“You should.” He didn’t say anything. “You really should.”

He looked at me. “Are you going to say something to him?”

“Yeah, as soon as he gets home tonight. Which means you have a window of a couple of hours to call him and tell him to meet you for dinner or something.”

Michael laughed, walked over to the door, took off the sign, and unlocked it. “Bye, Justin. I’ll think about it.” But he hugged me goodbye.

Ten minutes after I got in the car, my cell rang. It was Brian.

“So, Michael wants me to meet him at the diner after work. Weren’t you there all afternoon?”

“Yeah. We worked on Rage.”

Brian didn’t say anything, and neither did I.

“Okay, I get it. Michael wants to talk to me. So, you can probably guess when I’ll be home better than I can.”

“Later.”

“Later.”

When I got home, I carried my portfolio into the studio, but couldn’t bring myself to work on the fucking comic anymore. I wanted to work on my paintings. I had five months to get twelve pieces done for the show. I’d done that much work when I was in school, but this was different. Harder, and more important. I remembered Ben and I talking about creativity on a deadline at Mel and Lindsay’s housewarming party, and how it sucked.

I thought, fuck Rage, and sat down at my computer and opened the program I used to design my paintings. I had three of them mapped out, and started to work on the fourth. These were going to be painted on fiberglass, which I’d just started working with, and I was curious about how the designs would translate to the different surface. I got lost in my work for a while, and finally went out to the kitchen and made some eggs. It was after 10 and Brian still wasn’t home, and he hadn’t called.

Just past midnight, I was shutting down my computer and heard Brian’s car. I was waiting in the hall when he came in. He was carrying his suit jacket, and his tie was off, his shirt open at the neck and the sleeves rolled up. He didn’t stop when he saw me, just threw his jacket over the banister.

“Hey. How’s Michael?”

Predictably, Brian shrugged. “He’s okay. He’s an asshole for not talking about this while it was going on. I told him not to be a martyr next time.”

“That was supportive and caring of you.”

He quirked half a smile. “Michael gets plenty of support and caring from Ben. From me he needs his ass kicked.”

“I think Ben probably kicks Michael’s ass from time to time.”

Brian was walking into the media room. “He’d have to.”

I followed him. He was pouring a scotch. At least he wasn’t drinking it from the bottle. “Are you coming to bed soon?”

He shrugged again. Then he poured another drink.

“Okay, I’m going to bed. I’ll see you when you come up.” I hesitated a second, but I went over and kissed him. I wasn’t sure how he’d react, but he kissed me back, and his mouth was soft and tasted like scotch. I got my arms around him and held onto him, wishing that Brian could just let go of shit sometimes. But after a minute he let go of me, and carried his glass over to the window, and I went upstairs alone.

**Brian’s POV**

On Saturday morning, I woke up with Justin’s tongue in my ass.

"This new generation of alarm clocks has some interesting features." My arms were folded under the pillow, my head was turned to the side, and I was looking down at Justin lying between my legs.

He lifted his head up from my ass and grinned. "You have no idea." He went back to licking me.

"No, but I think my alarm clock has some ideas." He didn't say anything, just kept lapping at my hole. I stretched and somehow he took advantage of that and got his shoulders behind my thighs, pushing me up on my knees. I laughed. “Okay, I’ve got the picture. Either get up or get fucked.”

He was holding my cheeks apart with his hands, and he kissed my hole softly. “No, you don’t really. There’s no ‘or.’ You’re getting fucked, and then you’re getting up.”

I would have said something but just as he said that, he slid his tongue and a finger into my ass, and I jerked away from his mouth. He had one hand on my hip, though, and I didn’t get far. He was getting tricky. I dropped my forehead down onto the pillow and concentrated on not moaning while he fucked me with his finger and his tongue. He was softly rubbing my prostate with his knuckle and I was backing up against his mouth. I felt myself folding my lips inward and I buried my face deeper into the pillow, feeling my arms under it. I could hear my heart pounding in my ears.

He was really fucking good at this. I wondered how long he’d been licking me before I actually woke up.

I knew he was reaching for the lube because the hand still holding my cheeks open moved. And in a few seconds I felt a second finger wriggling at my opening, this one cold and wet. But I didn’t say anything, just let him slip it in with the other one, let him lube my ass and kiss the insides of my thighs. I pushed up a little more onto my knees, and shoved the pillow out of the way, and buried my head in my arms. I was rocking against his fingers, and he was moving behind me.

I felt the heat of his cock resting against my opening. And when he started to press inside me, I was surprised, like I always was, at the stretch and the pain and the fact that I leaned into it without thinking, without hesitating.

Justin’s hands were on my hips and he had dropped his head down and was kissing my back. I felt my ass tighten on him, and heard him moan, and realized I’d moaned too, because it was still vibrating in my throat.

“Brian.” His voice sounded thick. “Brian, Brian.” I loved hearing him say my name like that, like he couldn’t help it, like he wasn’t even aware of it. I thought of all the times I’d realized I’d been moaning his name over and over while I pulled on his hair or shoved into his ass, and just the thought of it made me crazy, made me reach my arm behind and slap at his thigh and his ass, try to pull his hand off my hip and onto my cock, dripping under me.

“Justin…” We were both sweating, and he was starting to fuck me faster, and then I felt him change his angle a little and stroke directly against my prostate every time he pulled out or slammed back in, and finally move his hand down and fist my cock. And then I stopped thinking, just fucked his hand and opened my ass for him, and let him jerk and shudder into me, feeling his come gushing hot and wet inside me, while a hot wave of feeling exploded up from inside of me and out of my cock in bursts.

I was still on my knees panting, and Justin was still inside me, but he was gently pulling out. I hated that, because it always hurt no matter how careful he was, and it always left me feeling a little strange. The head of his cock jerked past my opening, and I flinched even though I tried not to, and Justin’s hand was on my back, soothing me. He kissed me softly on the nape of my neck, and then he lay down next to me while I turned on my side and let him nestle into me, our legs tangled up.

My ass was sore, and I could feel his come inside it, and on the backs of my thighs. He had his face pressed against my chest, and he trailed his hand down my side and between my legs, and I spread them a little more. He was touching my asshole, not going inside but sliding his fingers in the come and lube around it. I sighed and squeezed down on his arm with my legs. “So, weren’t we supposed to be getting up?” My voice broke a little, and I cleared my throat.

He stretched lazily against me, and pulled back his head and smiled, his eyes half-closed. I could see just a little bit of happy blue under his lashes. “Mmmm. It’s early. They won’t be here until around 11. We have time.” And he curled his head under my chin and I fell back to sleep.

When I woke up, he wasn’t there, and I was all crusted with come and lube. I got out of bed, and my ass was still sore. After I showered, I put on my swimsuit, and pulled my jeans on over it. Lindsay and Melanie and the kids were coming, and I wasn’t sure what time it was, because as usual Justin had hidden the clock. Manipulative twat.

I got downstairs and poured a cup of coffee, and went and found him in his studio, working on the comic. “No work. It’s Saturday.”

He looked up, and smiled. I wondered if he’d gotten back to sleep at all. He looked tired. “I’d listen to you more if you weren’t the biggest fucking workaholic on the planet.”

I shrugged. “Well, maybe you need someone to fuck you into a stupor and hide the clock.”

He leaned back in his chair, looking amused. “Maybe I do. Are you volunteering?”

I grinned at him and started walking towards him. He laughed. “Speaking of clocks, Brian … it’s almost 11. I think we might have to schedule that for tomorrow morning instead.”

Just as he said that, I heard the sound of a car pulling into the driveway. Justin and I walked out to let everyone in through the gate to the pool. I hugged Lindsay while Mel and Justin helped the kids carry their inflatable toys inside.

“Michael and Ben are right behind us.” Lindsay smiled at me, her hair pulled back in a ponytail and a big straw hat in her hand. I walked through the gate with her, my arm looped over her shoulder.

Melanie was in the pool already, bouncing Jenny up and down in the water, while Gus stood on the edge, trying to get his toe into the water without falling in. I dropped my jeans and left them in a pile on the ground, and ran to the edge of the pool and dove in, coming up in front of Gus. He was laughing, and I held up my arms and he jumped into them, squealing when he hit the cool water. I let him ride around on my back while I swam for a while, but then he wanted to show me how he could swim by himself, so I hoisted myself onto the side of the pool and watched him do a clumsy crawl from one side of the pool to the other.

Justin had brought out sodas in a big cooler, and chips, and Gus got out to have some. Justin came and sat next to me, resting his hand on my thigh. “I’m going to try not to tell you how cute you and Gus are because I know it’ll make you act all mean for the rest of the day.”

“I’m not cute.”

“Gus is cute.”

“Okay.” He really was. At some point he’d start to hate that. Something Justin should know about. But he just grinned at me again and got up.

Ben and Michael got there a few minutes later, and I took a long look at Ben’s face. He looked rested and healthy and happy. And really, so did Michael. I relaxed a little, and gave Michael a hug, and dragged him over to the table. Mel and Lindsay had brought pasta salad, and we had a huge platter of fruit that Justin had actually cut up from its natural organic state, and a bowl of yogurt to dip it in. Since none of that seemed like anything Gus would consider putting in his mouth, Mel was in the kitchen making sandwiches. I went in there to get some beer, which Justin had somehow neglected to mix in with the sodas.

“I thought you’d sworn never to prepare food on that table again.” I grabbed several beers, and twisted the top off one and took a swallow before I turned around. Melanie was trying not to laugh while she spread mayonnaise on bread.

“Thanks, asshole, I’d forgotten all about that. Remind me to send you this week’s therapy bill.”

“Just this week? I must be slipping.”

She flicked the knife at me and a blob of mayonnaise landed on my chest. “Hey!”

She laughed. “You and Gus were so adorable in the pool. That must have just killed you.”

I contemplated her over my beer. “Justin already pointed that out to me. It won’t happen again.”

“Suck it up. It comes with parenthood.”

I handed her a beer.

After lunch, I got Michael stoned. I was a big believer in medicinal marijuana. We smoked it behind the garage, so we wouldn’t be a bad example for our kids. Then we went out to the swing set.

Michael was sitting at the bottom of Gus’ slide and I was sitting on one of the swings. I’d brought a beer with me, and I leaned all the way over and handed it to Michael. He took a swallow and handed it back. “You’re the worst influence.”

I nodded. “I am.” I was proud.

“How’s Justin’s hand?”

I wasn’t expecting that. “It’s fine, it’s the same, why?”

“He was having trouble with it at the shop the other day. I was just wondering, after you ripped me a new asshole for letting him draw that time.”

I frowned. “As far as I know, it’s fine. I’ll ask him. But he’d have told me if there was anything going on.”

Michael smiled. “You two are so married. And you’re not sucking anyone’s dick but his. Don’t even try to deny it. I’ve known you too fucking long.”

I didn’t say anything, just twisted the swing around a few times and let it unwind, spinning me around. Michael snorted.

“Well?”

I shrugged.

“You have plenty to say when it’s my life.”

“You,” I pointed out, “were fucking up your life.”

Michael burst out laughing. “Yeah, you’re always really receptive to having your fuck-ups pointed out to you.”

“Fine, I’m not fucking anyone but Justin. Are you extremely happy that I’ve turned into a fucking lesbian just like you and Ben and Ted and Blake and the munchers?”

Michael reached out and took my beer again. “The munchers didn’t turn into lesbians, they already were.”

“I stand corrected.”

“And I’m happy that you’re happy. The rest is bullshit.”

I looked at him. My little Mikey was growing up. I got off the swing and pulled him up from where he was sitting on the slide, and gave him a big kiss. “C’mon, let’s go throw Lindsay in the pool. She said she doesn’t want to get her hair wet.”

**Justin’s POV**

Monday night Brian stuck his head into my studio while I was working on Rage. He caught me rubbing my hand, so he came in and started massaging it. He didn’t say anything to me about it, though. He knew I had a deadline. And I think he more or less had the whole subject on hold until I saw the neurologist.

“I just wanted to tell you, Ted and I have to go to Chicago on Thursday, I’ll be back Friday night.”

I nodded, my eyes closed. It always felt so good to have him rub my hand.

Brian started working each one of my fingers. “Emmett wanted to come by Friday and look at something for the party, is that OK?”

“Sure, I’ll pretend I think he’s going to listen to any input from us.”

Brian laughed. “I just let him do what he wants, he’s going to anyway, and it always turns out alright. I didn’t even know what he was going to do for Christmas, and it was fine.”

I agreed. It was. It was actually spectacular. Emmett had an amazing ability to be innovative and surprising without ever going too far. Which, all things considered, was almost inconceivable.

I leaned my head on Brian’s shoulder and the minute I did, I felt his touch change. I looked up at him and smiled.

He kissed me, his mouth closed and his lips dry. “You done for the night?”

I sighed. “I’m not, but I am.”

“I was going to go swimming, why don’t you come with me, or go get in the hot tub or something. Relax. I seem to recall your acupuncturist wanted you to relax, have more sex, relax, eat more, have more sex, relax, and let me fuck you in the pool.”

“Okay, some of that sounded familiar. But a few of those things you might have, you know, made up.” I kissed him. He opened his mouth and I kissed him some more, feeling his tongue sliding all over and under mine. I was feeling a little dizzy. If I’d been in the hot tub, I’d have drowned.

He grinned and took me out to the pool, pulling my clothes off and then his. I let him undress me, sighing when he kissed and licked each part he uncovered, and when he knelt down on the pile of our clothes and pressed his face into my stomach and kissed it. I had no idea why things were so good with us. It was like he’d just totally stopped resisting it. And it had only taken six years of misery, suffering, agony, breakups, reunions, and incredibly hot sex. I laughed.

He looked up at me, eyebrows raised. “This is funny?”

I stroked his hair. “How the fuck did we get here?”

He laughed and stood up. “Don’t ask that question, it’s too fucking terrifying to even think about.” He kissed me hard.

“Brian? Did we just talk about our relationship?”

“Fuck. We did.”

I grinned at him.

“I love you. Now, get in the pool and let me fuck your ass.”

I threw my arms around his neck and stood on my toes and kissed him. “I just love it when you’re all romantic.”

He bit me on my neck and picked me up and jumped in the pool with me. I was sputtering and shaking my head when he stood up, still holding onto me. “Asshole. This is your idea of foreplay?”

He laughed. “You love it.”

“So, you want to fuck me in the pool? Any idea what we’re going to do for lube? Because if you think that thing is getting near my ass without lube, you’re out of your mind.”

“I have it all figured out.”

I looked at him skeptically. He didn’t even put me down, just nodded over to the basket next to the lounge chair nearest the pool. He shifted me onto his hip, and I put my legs around his waist and held on, curious. He leaned out and tugged the edge of the basket closer, and pulled a bottle of lube out.

Oil-based lube.

I burst out laughing. “Oh my god, the last taboo.”

“Yeah, well, I did a little research.”

I took the bottle out of his hand and read the ingredients. I was pickier about what went in my ass than what I ate. “You could cook with this. It’s totally natural.”

Brian laughed. “Okay, if you start cooking with our lube, I’m divorcing you.”

“We’re not married.”

“If we were, I’d divorce you for that.”

I opened the lube and smelled it, but it didn’t have an odor. I poured it on my hand and put my finger down to my asshole. Brian obligingly shifted me back in front of him so I had better access. “This feels good. And weird.” A little bit of water went in with my finger. I tried not to think about how much water would go in with Brian’s cock. I got more lube and slicked it on Brian’s cock. “I hope this doesn’t clog the filter.”

“People swim with suntan oil on all the time.”

I had my forehead against his and was angling my ass onto his cock. “Okay, stop talking now.”

His hands gripped my hips and he helped me slide my ass down onto his cock a little. “Okay, stop.” I let myself adjust to him being inside me, and the little rush of cold water lapping at my stretched asshole. “This is weird.”

Brian’s lips were folded in, and he pressed them and then released them. “I thought we weren’t talking. But if we are, ‘this is weird’ falls into the category of mood killer.”

I bounced a little in the water and slid down further on his cock. He gasped and I tightened on him. “Your mood seems fine.”

“We’re still talking.” And he suddenly jerked down hard on my hips, and pushed all the way into me.

The minute I felt him do that, I grabbed onto his neck and wrapped my legs even tighter around him. He was holding me but I weighed almost nothing in the water, and lifting off him was almost effortless. I buried my face in his neck and fucked myself on him, while he kept his hands on my hips and moaned into my ear. “Fuck, Justin, this feels amazing.”

I smiled into his neck, tasting the pool water and his sweat. His hair was wet and strands of it were sticking to my lips. I was trying to breathe but it was hard with his cock going into me so deep, it was pushing the air out of my lungs.

I leaned back, my arms still locked behind Brian’s neck, tipping my head back as far as I could and letting him move me with his hands on my hips, my legs wrapped around him. The water felt even cooler now against the heated skin of my hole, and it even felt cold on my thighs and balls. But Brian’s cock felt hot, and the contrast was amazing. I curved back into him and held on with one arm, and grabbed my cock in my right hand and started jerking myself off.

I had no idea how Brian was still standing up, but he was, even though I could tell he was close to coming. His breath was shallow and loud in my ear, and his grip on me was painfully hard. He was going to leave bruises on my hips. I angled myself a little better and felt a shock in my prostate that echoed out to my balls, and then I felt my come spill out of my cock, scalding hot on my hand in the water. I moaned against Brian’s ear and felt him go suddenly still and then felt his hot come flooding into me, hotter than it had ever felt, from the contrast with the cold water. “Oh fuck, Brian fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.”

He had his teeth on my shoulder and I felt him clamp down, and the pain of it turned into pleasure before I even realized what he was doing, and flowed down my spine into my balls and pushed the last bit of my orgasm out of me. I was holding onto Brian’s neck and waist and gasping, and he had his arms around me and moved back to the edge of the pool and leaned against it, breathing hard.

“Fuck.”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. I just kissed him.

After a few minutes, he reached down and gently pulled out of me. I felt a twinge of pain and then a little feeling of emptiness, and a little water, too. I laughed, but it sounded almost like a giggle.

“Think we can get out here, or should we use the stairs?”

I looked at the side of the pool. It suddenly seemed daunting. “Stairs.”

Brian laughed and held my hand and waded over to the stairs and pulled me up them. He wrapped me in his arms and kissed me, and then went and got a big towel from the foot of one of the lounge chairs and dried me off. I dried him off and pulled him down on the chair and we kissed for a while.

“Brian?”

He murmured against my hair. “Mmmm?”

"Do you know there are people who think monogamy is boring?"

"I seem to remember thinking that once myself."

"What happened?"

He thought for a minute. “I hadn’t accounted for the erotic potential of FOCUS.” And then he grinned at me and started kissing me again.

**Brian’s POV**

Something about hanging out with Ted when he wasn’t drinking always made me want to drink more. Which wasn’t a problem for him. He always seemed amused. The problem was, he’d just sit there waiting for me to pass a certain level of drunkenness, and then he’d start with the little comments and insinuations and questions.

Actually, he did that a lot lately even when I wasn’t drinking. Probably not a good idea to hire friends. Or have friends. One day they knew you and you were totally fucked.

I’d had three scotches waiting for dinner and one after, and I was feeling pleasantly buzzed while Ted drank his decaf coffee and we waited for our check. We’d gone to a steak place I knew in Chicago after a day of meetings. I took a sip of my fifth scotch and my cell phone rang. It was lying on the table and I glanced at the caller ID. It was Justin, so I answered.

“So, what are you wearing?” He obviously thought he was being extremely clever.

“Let me have Ted tell you.” I handed my phone to Ted. “It’s Justin, he wants to know what I’m wearing.”

“Hi, Justin. He’s wearing a greenish cotton knit sweater and tan linen slacks.” Ted peered over the table and I obligingly pulled my sweater up. “And a really nice brown leather belt, is that Prada?”

He handed the phone back to me and Justin was laughing. “Asshole.”

I smiled. “Later.”

“Later.” He hung up and I snapped the phone shut. And then faced Ted, who was smirking at me.

“What?”

“I’m just sitting here drinking coffee and having a wonderful time thinking about how totally fucked you are, Brian. In the history of being fucked you’re the most completely fucked guy ever.”

“These are the little moments that make me wonder why I hired you.”

He laughed. “So, seriously. You did it. Monogamy not as monotonous as you thought?”

I contemplated the half-empty glass of scotch and the likelihood that Ted would hold anything I said against me in the future. The certainty, I meant. “So far, I’m wondering how the two words ever came to be related.” The waiter brought our check and left before I could put my card into the folder. I sighed, and finished my drink. Ted was looking at me. “What?”

“Just wondering what it took to get you to think one person was enough for you.”

“Justin’s always been too fucking much, that was the problem.” I thought I was being funny but it came out profound. This is why I hated Ted.

He didn’t laugh, just looked thoughtful.

“Don’t read too much into this, Theodore. I’m shitfaced.”

Back at the hotel, I called Justin. He answered on the third ring. “Hey. Sorry about before.”

I bet. “It’s okay, what are you doing now?”

He sighed. “Working on Rage.”

“If you hate it, why do you do it?”

“I don’t hate it. I like it. I like being the guy who draws Rage, I like the money, I like the comic when it’s done. I just hate doing it when I’d rather be getting my paintings ready. And I hate deadlines.”

“Okay. So, what are you wearing?” I smiled when he laughed. “Why don’t you go to bed, Justin?” And call me when you get there, I thought.

He sighed again. “I can’t. I really have to work now.”

“It’s after 10.”

“Does that work on you?”

“Not usually.”

He was quiet for a second and I almost started to say goodnight. “My neurologist’s office called, they had a cancellation for tomorrow so I’m going in early.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah.”

“Isn’t Emmett coming by tomorrow?” Not that I really cared.

“I called him, it’s fine.”

“You know, Justin, I really hate the phone.”

Justin laughed. “Me too, at least, when I’m talking to you. You suck at it.”

"Remember the other day when you stopped by Kinnetik?"

"Yeah."

"And you interrupted Ted and me while we were working?"

"Ted was showing you something on Uncrate, but okay."

"Whatever. We could have been working."

"Okay, we’ll remember it your way."

"Well, I decided that entitled me to call you up and interrupt you while you’re working and have phone sex."

"That does seem fair."

“Good. Shut down whatever you’re doing, go upstairs, take off all your clothes, and call me back. In ten minutes. Or I’m gonna jerk off without you.”

I heard him laughing. “Really, you make your living in advertising? And that’s your idea of persuasion?”

“You said it seemed fair. I thought that meant I’d already persuaded you.”

“Okay. I’ll call you back in ten minutes. But you’re gonna tell Michael it’s your fault if I miss this deadline.”

“Deal. Later.”

“Later.”

Ted and I had meetings with our client starting early the next day. Blake was flying up to meet Ted and they were staying the weekend. Justin had said he’d call me after his appointment, but he called while my plane was in the air. When I called him back, it rolled to voice mail. His message said everything was fine, but he’d sounded strange.

When I got home, only the automated lights were on. It wasn’t that late, only 9, but Justin’s car was in the garage, so I knew he was there. I checked the hot tub and his studio, and then I went up to the bedroom. He was sound asleep, his hair on the dark pillow, the bedside lamp on its lowest setting. I stood next to him and looked down at his face, and it looked like he’d been crying.

I didn’t know whether to wake him up or let him sleep, but the next moment he opened his eyes. It took a minute for them to focus, but when they did, he smiled. I felt better.

I knelt down next to the bed and touched his hair. “Allergies acting up?”

“Yeah. Something like that.” He didn’t look away from me though.

“You said everything was okay.”

“It is. I’m fine.”

“Then what’s wrong? What did the neurologist say?” We clearly had different definitions of “fine,” since mine didn’t involve tears. I waited for him to say something, and he finally did.

“She said my hand really is better. My grip is stronger, my hand is even bigger because I have increased muscle mass. The nerves are functioning better, and all the subjective and objective measures are either the same or improved. She said the same thing the acupuncturist said, the bluish discoloration and temperature changes are due to increased use of the hand and vascularization of the tissues.”

“That all sounds good.”

He nodded. “It is.”

This was getting us nowhere. I should have fucked him before asking about his day; he liked to talk after we fucked. But right at the moment, I didn’t feel like fucking.

I stood up and got undressed, and got into bed next to him. He scooted over a little and let me under the duvet. I pulled him into my arms. He was wearing his underwear and a t-shirt. And weirdly, socks. “Why are you wearing socks?”

“My feet were cold.”

I pushed his socks off with my feet, and he laughed and pulled off the rest of his clothes. That was better. I kissed his hair. “Now, tell me what’s wrong.”

He sighed, but he dropped the “everything’s fine” crap. “The doctor really did say my hand was better, and she said there’s nothing to worry about. It’s not that.”

I waited.

“It’s stupid.”

“Okay, I’ll keep that in mind. What is it?”

“I asked her if she thought the acupuncture had helped, and she wouldn’t say, you know how it is. She can’t say anything about it, it’s not a part of mainstream medical practice, she isn’t an expert in it, that type of thing. Overall, she managed to get across that she thought it probably helped and there was no reason not to keep doing it.”

He stopped talking again. Jesus. “Then what did she say?”

“I asked if she thought there could be further improvement. And she said she’d thought my previous condition was my permanent baseline, so even the improvement I’d had was more than she’d expected. And I knew that. And then she said there was no reason to think there couldn’t be more improvement.” He stopped talking.

“That sounds good.”

“I know. That’s not the problem. I told you, it’s stupid.”

“So, tell me the stupid part.”

“After she said there was no reason to think there couldn’t be more improvement, she said, ‘But of course, your hand will never return to normal function.’ And I knew that, I’ve known that for years now.” He stopped talking, but he didn’t have to say the rest. I got it. I got it with a big fucking kick in the gut. At some point the little twat had started hoping. And I knew better than anyone, hope is a motherfucker.

I thought about what to say. He was just lying there, his head on my chest. At some point I’d started playing with his hair, and I didn’t stop. His body felt relaxed, or maybe just exhausted. “Now you understand the virtue of being a cynical asshole.”

He laughed and sniffled a little. “Does that help?”

I rolled him over and lay on top of him, looking in his eyes and smoothing his hair back from his face. “Not noticeably.” I smiled when I said it.

He looked at me for a few seconds, and closed his eyes. I kissed him. I didn’t know what else to do.

I was kissing his mouth, and then his neck and shoulders, and he turned in my arms and I kissed the back of his neck. He sighed and stretched, and I ran my hands down his side, and he moved his ass back against my groin.

When I went into him, even though he opened up to me, I could feel he was tense and holding back. So I ignored the heat snaking through my cock and balls and the base of my spine, and fucked Justin every way I knew he loved it. I fucked him until that last little bit of hesitation and self-protection disappeared. I felt him arching himself against me, his hand reaching behind him and grabbing the back of my thigh, pulling me in tighter. His head was tucked into his other arm and every time I moved into him he moaned. I could see his cock straining against his stomach, leaking, and I wanted to grab it in my hand, but I didn’t. I just kept fucking him.

His fist was clenching on the pillows and he half-rolled over to his stomach. He was moaning and saying my name, and I wrapped my arm around his chest and slipped my other one underneath him and pulled him as tight against me as I could, and thrust into him, over and over, until I felt him grab my leg and start to come, in long shuddering waves, his ass clenching on my cock. I pulled back and then pushed in again, pressing against the tightness, and then I came too, my face in his hair.

He was still on his side and I was curled around him, my dick still buried in him. I was kissing his neck and shoulders, but softly. I smoothed his hair off his damp forehead. I whispered into his ear. “I love you.”

I could see the side of his face and he smiled and snuggled back a little harder against me. “I love you, too.”

The duvet was piled up behind me on the bed and partly on the floor, so I reached my arm back, tugging it until it was covering us both. I left my arm over Justin, twining my fingers with the fingers of his right hand and just holding on. I didn’t move, but he whispered, “Stay inside me.”

“Okay.” I kissed his ear and lay there holding him, until he fell asleep.


	3. Desires, Chapter 3

  
  
  
**  
****Desires, Chapter 3**  
By Xie __

_“Can one desire too much of a good thing?” –_ William Shakespeare, _As You Like It_

**Brian’s POV**

There were certain things I had to get straight with Justin, such as that I was willing to bend the morning blowjob agreement while he was trying to meet a deadline, but his not being there at all in the morning had to stop.

I went downstairs and put the coffee on, and then checked his studio. He was curled up on the sofa I’d had put in there after he started falling asleep at his worktable. I sat down next to him, nudging his legs with mine. He mumbled and turned over, putting his arm over his face. I pulled it away and squeezed his hand.

His lips twitched and his nose wrinkled, and then he opened his eyes.

“Do you want coffee or to go upstairs to bed?”

Justin licked his lips and blinked. I waited for his brain to wake up enough to answer my question.

“Bed.”

I nodded and stood up, holding my hand out. He took it and I pulled him up, and he surprised me by leaning into me and closing his eyes. I stood with my arms around him for a minute. Then I noticed what was on the table.

“Justin?”

“Mmmmmm?” He didn’t even lift his head.

“Why are you drawing Ice Tina? Didn’t Rage vanquish her already?”

“She came back to life. Michael told you this story, I was sitting right there.” I dimly remembered a conversation about the plot of Rage at the diner.

“So I have to defeat Ice Tina all over again?”

“Not just Ice Tina, all Rage’s enemies came back to life in this. You really should pay attention when Michael tells you things.” Then he yawned again.

I thumped him on the back and pushed him out the door. He dragged himself upstairs while I went into the kitchen and had some coffee. He was sound asleep when I went upstairs. I stood and watched him for a minute, and then showered and got dressed. On the way to work I called Michael and made plans to meet him for lunch. And this time I was going to pay attention.

Michael was more than happy to spill the top-secret plot details of the next issue of Rage, after looking furtively around the diner to make sure we weren’t being watched. Although, to be fair to Michael, there probably wasn’t anywhere on earth with a higher percentage of Rage fans than the Liberty Diner.

“Okay, that sucks. How is Rage supposed to do that?” These two needed constant supervision.

“Well, he has Zephyr and JT…”

“Zephyr and JT are sidekicks.”

Michael frowned at me. “They’ve been developing their own powers.”

I rolled my eyes. “So, who came up with this brilliant and unfair plotline? My best friend or my boyfriend?”

He laughed. “It was a joint effort.”

I reached over and stole a few fries off Michael’s plate. “Isn’t there some kind of Sidekicks’ Code of Ethics?”

It was Michael’s turn to roll his eyes.

**Justin’s POV**

I woke up with a face full of sunlight. Which, since the bedroom windows faced west, meant I’d literally slept until the sun was going down. I began to see the problem with staying up all night drawing: it ate into your productive work hours the next day.

I dragged myself downstairs, thinking wistfully about coffee. There was a fresh pot. I have never loved Brian more than at that moment. Which gave me another idea.

I found him in the workout room, but he was listening to his iPod and didn’t hear me come in. Brian kept it dim and quiet, not bright and noisy like the gym. He was sitting on the weight bench doing bicep curls, his shirt soaked with sweat and his arm muscles straining. Which woke me up better than all the caffeine in all the coffee in all the Starbucks in Pennsylvania.

I walked closer to him. “Hey.”

Brian turned his head, and pulled the earbuds out of his ears. “Hey.”

“Thanks for the coffee.” I set the mug down and straddled the weight bench, facing him, our knees touching.

He grinned at me. “I had an ulterior motive.”

I put my hand out and traced one of his biceps with my finger. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to draw him or lick the sweat off his arm. “Yeah?”

He leaned a little closer to me, but not touching. “I thought that since you slept all day…you might want to come out dancing with me tonight.”

I flattened my palm against his upper arm and curved my fingers around his muscle. I could feel him breathing on my face. I licked my lips. “Okay.”

He leaned into me a little more, and I lifted my other hand and put it on the back of his neck. His hair was wet. I let my lips brush against his, just a little. I ran my hands up and down his arms, resting my face in the sweaty curve of his neck, licking it. His skin tasted like salt.

He still wasn’t touching me, but his breathing was shallow. He was sitting on the weight bench, his legs spread, the dumbbell still in his hand, his arm lying across his thigh. I ran my hands over his shoulders and down his back, slipping them up inside his tank top, pushing the iPod wires out of my way. I kissed his throat and trailed my mouth down his chest, and felt the hard muscles under my lips and cheek. I started sucking on one of his nipples through the wet fabric. I rolled it between my teeth, and then sucked on it again, feeling it get hard in my mouth. I had my palms flat against his back, and they slipped a little on his wet skin.

Brian let the dumbbell crash to the floor and brought both his hands up and gripped the back of my waist, pulling me in tight. His knees hit my inner thighs, so I let my legs slide up over his. His hands scooped under my ass from behind, and pulled our groins together. I wrapped my legs around his waist, feeling my spine curving and the hard ridge of his cock pressing against my balls and the crack of my ass. I had my arms around his neck, holding myself as close to him as I could.

He was pressed against me, and I could feel the damp heat of his sweaty clothes and skin, and I let my body soften and flow against his. His lips touched my throat and I tipped my head back, feeling my hair brush against the skin of my neck. I shivered a little, and then his hands slipped under the waistband of my sweat pants, sliding down over my ass cheeks, his fingers gripping them and pulling them apart.

I squirmed harder into him, arching my back to try to press my cock against his abdomen, and I felt his fingers touching my hole. And just as he started to play around the opening to my ass, he discovered that I’d been a good Boy Scout and I'd come in there prepared. I heard him groan my name into my neck, “Justin,” and then he bit me, hard.

His index fingers were in me, one from each hand, and he was bending them and moving them apart, opening me up almost roughly. I felt him brush against my prostate and my ass muscles clamped on his fingers, and he groaned again. He pulled his fingers out and gripped the backs of my thighs and stood up abruptly. I heard the iPod fall to the floor. I clung to his neck and wrapped my legs tighter around him while he stepped over the weight bench and laid me down on the exercise mat next to it.

Brian stood over me and pulled his sweaty tank top off, and then yanked his shorts down and stepped out of them. His cock was standing up against his stomach and dripping wet at the tip, and I put my arms back and looked up at him while he stared down at me, breathing hard.

He knelt between my legs, never taking his eyes off mine. I licked my lips and felt myself flushing. My cock was straining against my sweatpants, and there was a wet patch showing through the thin fabric. Brian smiled and tugged my pants down, jerking them roughly past my ass and off my legs. He ran his hands up the insides of my legs, pressing my thighs apart. My skin prickled everywhere, even where he wasn’t touching me, and I could feel my heart pounding. I almost couldn’t breathe.

His fingers were playing at the backs of my knees, and I lifted my legs up without thinking. He slid his arms under them and jerked me up and towards him, lifting my ass off the mat and shoving his knees under me. I let my legs fall down, caught on his arms. His cock was pressing against my ass, and without touching it, he pulled his hips back and moved in close again. I felt his cock head prodding at my hole, and I shifted a little. I felt him press against me, and then pull back a tiny bit, and then press again, harder, and I felt myself opening up for him and the head slipped in.

He stayed there, where I was tightest, and I felt him stretching me, felt the blood beating in my ass and throbbing in his cock. I bit my lower lip and relaxed and he moved in a little deeper, and I tightened on him again, and then opened. He pulled me in closer and I felt his cock sliding deeper into me, felt the head prodding at my prostate, and I moaned and closed my eyes, then opened them before he could even ask me to.

He kept rocking against me, the smooth head of his cock pushing at that one spot, the pleasure shooting out in little explosions to my balls and cock and even down the insides of my thighs. The backs of my legs were sliding against him while he thrust into me, and he was staring at me with his lips folded in, his eyes as dark as I’d ever seen them.

I felt a wave of feeling explode out from inside my ass. I didn’t want to come yet, and I tried to grab onto something, but there was nothing, no sheets to clutch, no pillows, and Brian’s hands were too far away for me to reach.

I groaned his name, “Brian,” and he pulled my hips in even closer, and unbent his arms and let me grab his hands. I held onto him and it grounded me a little, let me ride the waves of feeling instead of getting swept away by them, at least for a while. He started to thrust into me more deeply. He let go of my hands and let my legs drop down, and he leaned over me. I got my legs up around his back, twining my ankles together. He had his weight on his arms on either side of my head, and I turned my face and kissed his wrist. He bent down and I opened my mouth for his tongue, and played with it with mine, and then he started to fuck me faster, the muscles in his stomach clenching and his hips pumping into me. I grabbed onto his upper arms and angled my ass a little, and he gasped when he slid in deeper. I knew he was close, and I reached for my cock, my other hand going up and resting on the back of his neck.

Brian’s forehead was pressed against mine when he started to come, and he made a choked sound that pushed me over the edge, too. I was gripping his neck so hard I was curving up off the mat, and he was buried all the way in my ass, while he shuddered his orgasm into me, his balls pressed against me.

We were soaking wet, a mess of sweat and come, and he was crushing me into the floor, and I wanted to lie there for the rest of my life and never move again. And I think he felt the same way, because he just lay on top of me, breathing hard.

After a long time he grunted and shifted himself enough to pull his cock out of me, and then moved his weight partially off me to the floor. He sighed and pulled me so my head was under his chin, and then started his usual post-fuck playing with my hair.

I smiled even though he couldn’t see my face. “So, dancing.”

Brian sighed against my hair and shifted all the way onto his side, looking at me. “Maybe not tonight. Tomorrow.”

I smiled and turned and faced him, putting my hand on the side of his face. “Maybe, a shower? And dinner? We could go out to dinner, unless it’s too much like a date for you.”

He grinned at me. “We didn’t get any non-dating clauses into the prenuptial agreement, did we?”

“No, after we’d gone around a few times on the blowjob language, I think we decided to let it go.”

Brian buried his face in my hair again. “Mmmmm. Blowjobs. I remember those.”

“You should, you had one yesterday.”

“That seems like a really long time ago.” He was nibbling at my ear lobe.

“We could order pizza. And get in the hot tub. You might get lucky.” I was smiling.

“You’re going to feed me, booze me up, put me into a stupor with a blowjob, tuck me into bed, and then stay up all night drawing again, aren’t you?”

I kissed his jaw. “Yeah. Is that bad?”

Brian twisted his lips in and then shrugged. “It’s bad, you might wake me up when you come to bed.”

I hid my smile in his neck.

“What?”

“You miss me when I’m not there.”

Silence.

“You hate sleeping without me.”

He gave a little huff.

I lifted up on my elbow and looked at him. “You so love me. You can’t even sleep without me anymore. I’m going to give you ten blowjobs for that.”

Brian smiled.

**Brian’s POV**

After we showered, I let Justin feed me pizza in front of the television, and then I nuzzled at his crotch while he licked cheese and tomato sauce off his fingers and laughed. In a strange way I felt both domesticated and like a teenager at the same time. I started to lick his fingers too, but he’d gotten all the good tastes off, so I pulled his sweatpants down and did something else with my mouth. His hands were in my hair when he came, his legs still crossed in front of him, and my arms wrapped around his hips.

“I thought I was going to do that for you.” He was petting my hair.

I grinned up at him from his lap, and gestured at my crotch. “Go for it.”

He laughed and untangled his legs, curving himself down and kissing me, pushing me to the side while he slid down my body. He unbuttoned my jeans with one hand while I stroked his hair, and then he started to lick the head of my cock. That’s all he did. He didn’t touch me with his hands, he didn’t even let his tongue dip below the rim. He tongued my slit and licked me and in less than a minute I was groaning his name and fisting his hair and pumping my hips into his face.

Which seemed to be what he’d been waiting for, because he shifted himself a little more and dropped down on my cock with his mouth and took me into his throat. He moaned, and I felt his throat moving around the head of my cock while his tongue kept licking at that spot below the rim that he knew made me nuts. I pulled out and his tongue dragged over the vein on my shaft, and then flattened out on the underside while I thrust back in.

I came deep in his throat, feeling it vibrating around me while he moaned and swallowed, and he lay there for a long time afterward. I kept my hands in his hair and let him rest his head on my thigh. I didn’t think about anything.

Finally he shifted back up to lie next to me. “This is our night for fucking on the floor. You’d never know we have eight bedrooms.”

I smiled with my eyes closed. “Bed. That sounds good.”

“Have I managed to wear you out?”

I opened my eyes and laughed. “You can hardly lift your head up, Justin. Which one of us is worn out?”

Justin bit my chin and then we went upstairs.

When I got into bed, he climbed in with me.

“You going to stay, or are you just humoring me?”

He kissed my jaw and cuddled up to me. “I’ll stay.”

I figured he’d sneak off as soon as I fell asleep, and maybe that’s what he meant to do. But when I opened my eyes in the morning, Justin was curled on his side, breathing slowly, sound asleep. I stuck the clock in the bedside drawer, closed the drapes, and went downstairs to make coffee.

I was sitting by the pool drinking it when I heard Emmett pull up, and I let him in the gate.

“Hey, sweetie!” He braved my stubble, my glare, and my bed head and kissed me on the cheek. “Where’s Justin?”

“Sleeping Beauty?”

Emmett laughed. “Still wearing that boy out?”

“Not me… Rage. He’s been drawing that fucking comic all night for a week now. I’m about ready to pay Michael to off him in the next issue.”

“I don’t think you’ll get either of them to kill their hero, honey. Think about it. Your best friend and your boyfriend, killing you?”

“There have been times either or both would have gladly done it.”

That shut Emmett up, but only briefly. “Not recently.”

I thought about that for a while, looking at the pool glumly. “Well, they’re ganging up on him in this issue.”

“Zephyr and JT?” He looked confused.

I shook my head. “No, Michael told me that he and Justin have brought back all Rage’s enemies from every issue before this one, and they’ve banded together to take him out.”

Emmett was making an earnest effort to get this to make sense. “Most of them are dead.”

“Rage and Zephyr can fly. They go to other planets. Reality isn’t a strong focus of the series.”

“Ice Tina?”

I nodded.

“Rev. Swineheart?”

“Yup.”

“The zombies?”

“What part of ‘all Rage’s enemies from every issue before this one’ did you not get?”

“How did they bring them back?”

“Remember the Governor, from the planet where JT and Rage went to get married?”

“Sure, Rage had him put on a penal world.”

“It was a minimum security penal world, for white collar intergalactic criminals.”

“Naturally.”

“He busted out, along with some mad scientist imprisoned there, who knew how to re-animate the dead.”

Emmett nodded sympathetically. “I hate when that happens.”

I had to agree.

**Justin’s POV**

I woke up in the bed alone. I didn’t see the clock, but Brian usually just stuck it in the drawer, so I checked and it was almost 11. I got up and put on my swim trunks.

I went out by the pool with coffee and my laptop. I could see Brian and Emmett down at the tennis court. I watched them for a while, Emmett in a loose white shirt with only one button done, and pale blue pants, and Brian wearing skin-tight black long-legged swim trunks, his muscles, and a tan.

I was reading email when they came back up. I held up my cheek for a kiss from Emmett, and Brian dropped down next to me on the lounge chair.

“So, are you going to jackhammer up the tennis court?”

Emmett laughed. “No, just take down the fence and change the lighting. You’ll love it.”

“I always wanted a country estate with a pool, stables, and a dance floor in the middle of the lawn.” I set my laptop down on the ground next to the chair, and Brian scooted a little closer to me. All that stored up heat from standing out in the sun with Emmett radiated out from his skin. I couldn’t stop myself from touching him.

Emmett was watching us, an amused expression on his face. “Is there more coffee, Justin?”

“There’s a whole pot, I can get you some.” I needed another cup myself.

But Emmett just smiled. “I can get my own, and I’ll get you a refill, and it’s actually just an excuse to give the two of you a moment alone to do whatever it is you do when you’re alone and half-undressed and no one’s here watching.”

Emmett went to the kitchen, and Brian grinned and rolled into me playfully.

I laughed. “Better be careful, Brian, that swimsuit hides nothing at all.” He had approximately seven hundred swimsuits, even though he swam nude unless there was company. This one fit his crotch like it was made for him. Which it might have been, knowing Brian.

“I have nothing to hide.” He looked smug.

“You have plenty to hide.”

“I have plenty. That’s why I don’t hide it.” He let his legs fall open and pulled my hand to his crotch.

“Here, Justin, something hot to hold.” It was Emmett, handing me my coffee. I snatched my hand away from Brian’s crotch while they both laughed, and I pushed Brian away from me with my feet, spilling a little hot coffee on him when it splashed over the edge of the cup.

Brian and Emmett went into the house so Brian could sign checks, something I was happier not seeing, as Brian’s budget for this party was currently more than I made in a year. I read my email. Daphne wanted to stop by, my mother was wondering if Brian and I wanted to have dinner, and Michael was asking about changing the time of our next work session. And there was an email sent jointly to Michael and me, confirming a phone interview we were doing with a New York radio station on independent comics. After Emmett left, Brian came back out and stripped off his trunks and dove in the water.

Later that afternoon I was working on Rage in my studio, trying to fight down the urge to paint. I felt my hand tensing up, and knew I should switch to the computer before it started to cramp. I had several hours of work ahead of me, and there wasn’t any reason to push it. But I just didn’t feel like dealing with the computer, and so I threw down my pen and got up abruptly and went to my easel.

I hadn’t started this painting yet, but I’d finished two in the series of four. They were leaning against the wall, hidden by a large canvas. I moved the canvas out of the way and pulled the two paintings out, and leaned them against the wall. I liked them. A lot. They weren’t my first acrylic-on-fiberglass works, but they were the first ones I’d kept and liked. No one had seen them yet, not even Brian. I’d borrowed from my Rage time to paint them, because I couldn’t help it. Just like I couldn’t help it today.

“Fuck.” I jumped. Brian had walked in barefoot, and I hadn’t heard him. “Fuck, Justin, when did you do these?”

“Last week, when I should have been working on Rage.”

“This is why you’ve been doing all the late nights, catching up?”

I nodded.

He stood there looking for a while. The paintings were very similar to each other. I’d run thin ropes of color in a computer-generated grid pattern all over the white surface, colors very different from anything I’d worked with before, sort of fake-looking fifties ice-cream toned pastels, teal and lavender and bright yellow. I’d taken a very fine brush and almost imperceptibly blurred each line, and then laid a single copper wire, so fine you could barely see it, along a few of the lines, to one side, or the other, or down the middle, randomly.

Each grid converged so slightly you practically didn’t notice it until you saw both paintings next to each other, drawing the eye to a different area in each painting. I wanted to see all four of them together so much I almost couldn’t concentrate on anything else.

Brian was staring at them, and kind of frowning. “What?”

He shook his head. “They’re great. I want them.”

“I told you, you can have first refusal on anything I paint. But I have to have them for the show. And you’ll have to buy them from Armand, I have a contract.”

“I know.” He stood there looking, and then sighed. “Justin, you need to work on these. Can’t you get an extension on the comic?”

“Sure. But then I’ll just have to do it later. And this isn’t a stand-alone issue, it’s a cliffhanger, which means we have to do the next one pretty quickly, so it doesn’t really buy me a lot of time. And I promised Michael.”

Brian started to object but I cut him off. “I don’t come to Kinnetik and try to set your priorities for you, Brian.”

“You’re being rational. I hate that.”

“You’ll have to find a way to live with it.”

I realized I was rubbing my hand, and that Brian had noticed. I stopped, because I’m brilliant and keep thinking that if I stop rubbing it he’ll forget he saw me rubbing it. But he didn’t say anything about my hand, just put his arm around my shoulder and stood staring at my paintings.

“I want them for Kinnetik.”

I liked that. “They kind of remind me of Kinnetik, actually.”

He leaned his cheek against my hair. “Have I ever mentioned that you’re incredibly talented?”

I smiled so hard my face hurt. “Yeah, once or twice. You can say it as much as you want, though.”

“When will you be done with this issue of Rage?”

“I’m shooting for a few days before the end of the month, to leave a little time for last minute changes. It’s due on the 30th.” Our party was on the first, so I wanted to finish early if I could.

“I know there’s nothing I can do, but is there anything I can do? Bribe someone, have anyone killed or kidnapped, remodel something?”

I thought about it for a minute. “You already make coffee and fuck me regularly, that covers the really important things.”

“Caffeine and sex. The basics of life.”

I abruptly turned around and wrapped my arms around Brian, hiding my face in his chest. “You do everything I need, Brian. I love you.”

I know I surprised him, but he just stood there with his arms around me for a long time. And when I finally looked up at him, he said, “I love you, too.”

**Brian’s POV**

I was rubbing the bridge of my nose and wondering if it was totally irresponsible to have a drink in the middle of a conference call, and if anyone would know if I snuck away from the speakerphone to get one. Ted came into the room and pointed at his watch, and I smiled.

“Everyone, I’m sorry, but my next appointment is here. It sounds like we’ve got all the basic details worked out…” a thousand times over… “so I’ll have Cynthia write something up for your review.” Cynthia took that as her cue and I left the phone call as she took over.

“Thanks, the next time I fire you, remind me I owe you.”

“No problem, their interview starts in about three minutes.”

I’d already loaded the radio station’s website, and clicked on the streaming audio. Ted sat down on the sofa, and I leaned back in my desk chair and started to flip through the notes for a meeting I had later that afternoon. The interview started, and I more or less tuned it out, until I heard the interviewer introduce Justin and Michael.

I’d read every interview ever done about Rage, including all the ones that came out when Justin was off with the fiddler. As far as I knew, and I knew, this was the first audio interview they’d ever done. Underground x-rated gay comics weren’t exactly in huge demand on talk media. I knew what the interviewers usually asked, and this one didn’t ask anything new.

It’s just I’d never actually heard Justin answering these questions before. They asked about the explicit sexual content, about the upcoming issue, about how Michael and Justin had started writing, about Michael’s comic book store. And then they asked what they always asked, about Justin’s bashing and the story of the first issue of Rage.

And I heard Justin answering the questions in a perfectly normal voice, as if it had happened to someone else and not him.

Sometimes interviewers asked about me, but only if they were from the gay media. This one didn’t. After they covered the basics, they moved on to the other guests, and I sat there not really listening, pretending to read the notes, wondering how Justin got to where he could talk about it in that calm way, telling a story he didn’t actually remember, a story he’d only heard from me.

“Brian?” I wasn’t really sure how long Ted had been standing there. I looked up from the papers in front of me.

“Yeah?”

Ted didn’t say anything for a minute, just looked at me. I looked back at him, keeping my expression blank. Finally I lifted an eyebrow. That got him talking.

“What did you think?”

“About what?”

“The interview.” Ted had that patient tone in his voice.

I shrugged. “Same as they always are, geeks saying geeky things about comic books, Michael and Justin giving the same answers to the same questions.”

“I’m assuming you’ll phrase that differently when Justin and Michael ask how you thought they did?”

“I’ll try to have some appropriate remarks prepared before I go home tonight. Anything else?”

I should have known better than to give him a lead like that. He hesitated, and I used my powers of mind control to tell him to stop talking and leave.

Rage didn’t let me down. Ted left.

Justin called on my cell phone a few minutes later. “Hey.”

“How’d it sound?”

“Good. Both of you sounded good, if I didn’t already have at least a dozen copies of every issue I’d have run right out and bought them.” I was trying to sound light.

It seemed to work, because he laughed a little. “Okay. I’m heading home, unless you want to have lunch with us at the diner. I need to get back to work.” They’d gotten together at Michael’s store to do the interview.

I passed on lunch. I had to get back to work myself. I sat there eating a salad Elaine had brought me, and checking my personal email. My cell phone rang, but I didn’t recognize the number.

“Hi, Brian, I thought maybe I’d catch you on a lunch break.” It was Daphne.

“I’m shoveling in food as we speak. What’s up?”

“Did Justin talk to you about my master’s thesis topic?”

Daphne must be the woman with the worst timing on earth.

“Yes.”

She didn’t sound reassured at the brevity of my response. Which I wish had been a clue to her, but she pushed ahead.

“I know Justin hasn’t decided if he wants to be interviewed for it or not, but I was hoping, either way, you would. Let me interview you, I mean.”

“What about?”

“Justin being bashed.”

“No.” I knew I should apologize or something, but fuck it. “Daphne, I need to go. My appointment is here.” And I hung up. And sat there at my desk wondering what kind of fucked up cosmic energy was converging on me today, and why.

I got home late. I’d picked up takeout on my way home, but there was a pan soaking in the sink, so it looked like Justin had already eaten. I wasn’t really hungry so I put the food in the refrigerator.

I could hear music from the studio, but I decided to let him work and went into the media room. I almost went to my computer, then turned on the TV instead, some inane reality show I wasn’t really going to watch. I flipped from station to station for a while, but there wasn’t anything on. I left it on CNN and went and got a bottle of scotch from the bar and sat down with it. I didn’t bother with a glass.

I started feeling a little better after a few swallows, and loosened my tie and took off my shoes and socks. I decided to find Justin. He was sitting at his computer, his right hand holding the stylus, his left hand cradling his right wrist. I felt angry, and waited until the feeling went away before I said anything.

“Hey.”

He looked up at me, surprised, and put down the stylus. He turned around and lowered the volume on the music, and smiled at me. “Hey.”

I walked over to the worktable and sat down. There was a stack of drawings on the table, and I pulled the top one over and looked at it. It was nothing, just Zephyr running down a street.

Justin came and sat next to me, and put the drawing back where I’d found it. He seemed a little uncertain. I didn’t look at him, just picked up his right hand and held it in both of mine for a minute. It was shaking, very slightly, and I knew he wanted me to let it go. I could hear him silently telling me not to say anything. It wasn’t only Rage who had powers of mind control.

I started to rub it gently, and I felt him relax. That usually meant I wasn’t going to lecture him. And I didn’t.

“Why did you bring back the bashers?” And here I thought I never let anything unplanned come out of my mouth.

Justin was as surprised as I was. “Huh?”

“The comic. Why did you bring back the bashers? They weren’t Rage’s enemies. They were JT’s.”

Justin didn’t answer right away, and I still didn’t look at him. “Because they were the villains from the first issue, and because they challenged Rage after he stopped them from attacking JT, so Michael and I saw them as his enemies.”

This time I did look at Justin. His eyes were dark and he looked upset. “Doesn’t it bother you to draw that, to talk about it?”

He pulled his hand away. I think I was hurting him. But he didn’t get up.

“No. I don’t mind talking about it. Sometimes putting things behind you and not talking about them doesn’t work.”

I snorted. “Tell me about it.”

He waited. I got up and walked over to his easel, but the fiberglass panel was still untouched.

Justin walked up behind me, and his hesitancy was gone. He was always the bravest little fucker. “Let’s go to bed.”

“You go, I’m going to watch TV for a while.”

“You mean sit in there and get shitfaced.”

“Something like that.”

“Brian…” His voice trailed off.

I turned around and put my hands on the side of his head and pressed my forehead against his. “I’ll be okay, but you go to bed.”

He put his hands over mine and pressed back. “Come up with me. Just for a little while.”

I sighed. “Okay. For a little while.”

I lay in bed holding him. There was no way I was going to fall asleep, and I knew he was going to try to stay awake until I did. I felt angry again, and made the feeling go away. Justin hadn’t done anything to make me angry. But I could feel his worry radiating out of him and it was making me want to climb out of my skin.

I pulled him up into my arms and kissed him, thinking I could make him go to sleep faster if I fucked him, but he just kissed me softly, his hands on my face, and then pulled away, biting his lip and looking at me. I pretended nothing was wrong, and lifted my eyebrow.

“Not in the mood?”

He looked at me for a minute. “I don’t think you are.”

“I’m always in the mood.”

He smiled then, and I held him closer, and let my hand wander down to his ass. He pressed against me, and lifted up his face, and I kissed him again, but this time, something I was feeling got mixed in with the kiss. It felt a little desperate.

I gently pressed on his hip and he rolled over onto his stomach, and I reached for the lube. When I was inside him, I started feeling good again, and normal, and I thought, maybe Justin did know what I needed better than I did. I buried my face in his hair and kissed the back of his neck and his shoulders.

**Justin’s POV**

I had no idea what to do for Brian. He wasn’t tense like he sometimes was, when I could usually bully him into bed and seduce him out of it. He was blank. It had been a long time since I’d seen him like this, and I never had found anything that worked. It just took time.

I was lying with my head on his chest, trying to stay awake until he fell asleep. But even though we’d made love, he didn’t seem any closer to sleep. I could tell he was just waiting for me to fall asleep to go back downstairs. He’d done that before. I didn’t know why it bothered me so much that night, except for that blankness.

“Brian?”

“Hmmm?”

I hated myself for asking, but I did it anyway. “What’s wrong?” He was going to tell me nothing was wrong.

“Nothing.”

“You’re freaking out.” He wasn’t really, but I didn’t know what else to call it.

“I’m not freaking out. Go to sleep, Justin. I’m fine.”

“Bullshit. What happened?”

I heard him sigh. “Are you going to do that interview with Daphne?”

“I still don’t know, but I’m thinking I might, why?”

He didn’t answer right away. “She asked me.”

“To get me to talk to her?”

“No, she wants to interview me.”

I tried to hide my surprise. “What did you tell her?”

“I told her no. I don’t have anything to tell her that she doesn’t already know.”

I laughed a little, uneasily. “All she knows is what I told her, and all I know is what you told me. I think it’s safe to say you know more than either of us.”

Brian got out of bed.

“Brian…”

“Justin. I’ll be back up later, get some sleep.”

I got out of bed and put my arms around him. “Brian.”

He pulled my arms off his neck. He did it gently, but he did it. “Justin, don’t… don’t fucking comfort me for something that happened to _you_.”

I stepped back from him, a little shocked. And he turned and left the room.

I got back in bed and lay there for a while, feeling angry with Daphne. I wished she’d asked me before talking to him, and I wasn’t even sure if that was rational or not. I knew this was covered in the Kinney Operating Manual, but I had to have all the facts to know which section to look in. I’d been looking in the wrong one all night.

I woke up suddenly, with no memory of falling asleep. I looked at the clock. It was 4 am, and Brian wasn’t there. I got up and pulled on my sweats, and went downstairs to the media room.

I hesitated in the doorway. The light on the desk was on, but the rest of the room was dark, and I didn’t see him. I walked quietly to the sofa, and saw him lying on his side, his arms wrapped around himself, his eyes closed.

I almost just picked up a blanket to cover him and went back upstairs. It wasn’t the first night Brian had passed out on the sofa. It wouldn’t be the last. But instead I went over to the desk and turned off the light, got a blanket, and slid into the narrow space next to him, tucking myself into the curve of his drawn up knees. I pulled the blanket over us both.

He must have been closer to consciousness than I thought, because while I was settling against him, he unwrapped his arms and opened them up for me, pulling me tight into his chest. I lay there, feeling his heart beating against my back and his breath in my hair.

Everywhere he was pressed against me was warm, and I knew he had to be warm, nestled between me and the sofa back, covered with the blanket. But it felt a little like he was shivering, and he kept pulling me tighter. And he was kissing my hair.

“Brian.” I felt helpless. He thought I shouldn’t comfort him? It was killing me not to.

“I was so scared.” He was whispering. “I thought you were dead.”

For a minute I thought he was talking about the night Babylon was bombed, but then I realized those were the next two sentences of the conversation from hours before. I swallowed hard. I couldn’t think of anything to say, and I doubt I could have gotten anything out. I just kept my arms wrapped over his, around us both.

He drew a breath, and it sounded a little ragged. I felt his lips on my hair, but he didn’t say anything else. It still felt like he was shivering, and then I realized he was crying.

I turned around inside his arms, managing not to fall off the edge of the sofa. He let me turn and then nestled his chin on the top of my head, lifting his leg so I could slip mine in between his. I had my arms wrapped around him, under his arms. I held him as tightly as I could, tight enough to hurt. And after a while, the shivering stopped, and I gently kissed him on the neck, and relaxed my hold on him.

He sighed. “Eight bedrooms. And we’re jammed into this couch. Let’s not do this again.”

I just nodded. I still wasn’t sure I could talk.

He kissed my forehead. “Let’s go to bed.”

I leaned back and looked at him. “Okay.” Like that wasn’t where the whole conversation began.

He fell asleep almost the minute his head hit the pillow, one hand tangled in my hair and the other holding my hand. But I didn’t fall asleep until the sun was coming up.


	4. Desires, Chapter 4

  
  
  
**  
****Desires, Chapter 4**  
By Xie

 _“I know that if I ever go looking for my heart's desire, I'll never go any further than my own back yard. For if it isn't there, I never really lost it.”_ –Dorothy, _The Wizard of Oz_

**Brian’s POV**

I woke up to a warm feeling on my neck. It took me a minute to realize it was Justin’s mouth. He was leaning over me, dropping little kisses from my jaw to my throat. I turned from my side onto my back and let him slide on top of me, and wrapped my arms around him. He started kissing my mouth, and I moved my hands up into his hair and kissed him back.

Between kisses, I asked him, “Does this mean you’re done?”

He wriggled his hips a little and I groaned and pressed up against him. “Yeah, it’s all in a nice neat stack to go to Michael tomorrow, and if he wants any changes he can fucking make them himself, I’m finished.”

He kissed me on the mouth again, his hands between us trying to unbutton my jeans. I’d fallen asleep on the sofa in front of the television. He must have turned it off before he attacked me.

I kept my hands in his hair and shifted my hips back to give him some room. “We could go upstairs and do this in our bed instead of here.”

“We could do both. I could blow you right here, and then we could go upstairs and I could fuck you.” He slithered off me and knelt next to the sofa, tugging on my jeans, and I laughed and lifted my butt up so he could slide them off. “Or, I could fuck you and then we could go upstairs and I could blow you. Or we could go upstairs and I could fuck you and then blow you. Or…”

He’d started kissing my belly and my cock while he explained our options, all of which, I noticed, had one overriding theme. “Those are my choices?”

Justin didn’t answer, just kept kissing me, still kneeling next to the sofa. His hands were on my hips, and he was gently urging me onto my side, facing him. He moved down my body, sliding his shoulder under my thigh, lifting it up, while his mouth closed on my cock. I let my leg fall over him, my hands on his head, thrusting into his mouth while he slipped one finger in alongside my dick and wet it. Then he looped his arms around my thighs and pulled my cheeks apart with the fingers of one of his hands. He gently worked his wet finger into my ass while he licked and sucked on my cock, letting me rock between his mouth and finger until I was on the edge of coming.

I pulled at his hair and tried to slow him down. He moved his finger back outside me and just played at the opening of my hole, and started licking at the head of my cock. He finally pulled his mouth off, and looked up at me.

I moved my leg off his shoulder and rolled all the way over, and Justin was swarming over my back, his hand reaching out for the sofa table drawer. He sat back for a minute, and I felt his fingers at my ass, cold and wet with lube, and pushed myself up onto my knees.

I laughed a little. “I can’t believe I’m letting you do this, after the way you and Michael treated Rage this time.”

I felt his breath and his laugh at my ear. “Michael’s in charge of the plot, don’t take it out on me.” And he slapped at my thigh a little and we stopped talking.

When he slid inside me it burned and hurt and felt good, all at the same time, and I buried my face in my crossed arms and felt him kissing my back and shoulders. He had worked his lubed hand underneath me and was grasping my cock, and I let the motion of him thrusting into me push me into his fist.

Justin was always slow and careful when he started fucking me, but there were times when I could feel him fighting for control. And now and then he lost it, and sometimes I liked feeling him lose it. I tightened my ass on him, and changed the angle of my hips, and he started thrusting into me faster. He moved his hand off my cock and back to my hip, and I bit my lip and tightened on him again, grabbing at his cock with my ass muscles.

He started moaning against my back, my name and sounds that didn’t have any words, and his grip on my hips got even fiercer. I smiled and rocked back just enough to slide my hand down to my own cock, fisting it and smearing my pre-come all over it, jerking myself off roughly while I pulled hard on Justin’s cock with my ass, knowing he was right on the edge of coming, and was trying not to.

The bursts of pleasure inside my ass were melting into one long building wave of heat, spreading into my balls and my cock. I pushed back against him and he pushed into me, and he choked off a cry and pressed his forehead into my back just as I threw my head back and started to come. I felt it in my stomach muscles and my thighs, exploding out from inside me, with Justin’s sweaty chest pressing against me while I felt him shuddering his orgasm into my ass.

I fell down onto the sofa and Justin fell down onto me. I twisted my head around enough so I could see him, his damp hair spread on my back. He lifted his head and smiled softly at me, and I reached back and helped him pull out of me, and then turned onto my side, moving him up between me and the back of the sofa.

We were lying there facing each other, his right arm lying across me. I reached for his hand and rested my palm against his right palm, our fingers lacing together. “How’s your hand?”

He didn’t move it away. “Pretty fucked up.”

I sighed. “Well, at least you’re done.” I worked my other arm out from under us and started to massage his hand. He closed his eyes and after a few minutes, when I was working the big muscle at the base of his thumb, he made a sound like he was purring.

That made me laugh. “You’re easy tonight.”

He poked at me with his foot. “Look who’s talking.”

I smiled and rubbed his hand for a while more, and then put it down and kissed his hair.

“We should go to bed.” I had no idea what time it was. I felt him nod against me, but he didn’t move, so I got up and pulled him off the sofa and upstairs. We were both covered with dried come and sweat, so I started the shower, and when the water was hot he climbed in with me, and stood inside my arms while I washed him and shampooed his hair. His eyes were closed and he was leaning on me, and after all the soap and shampoo were rinsed away from us both, I just stood there, holding him, while the hot water coursed down over us.

His forehead was on my chest, and I had my arms around his shoulders, my head resting on his. He yawned a little. “I’m going to sleep until noon tomorrow.”

“Do you want me to bring the drawings to Michael?”

He pulled his head back and gave me a sleepy version of his best smile, and went up on his toes and kissed me. “I knew there was a reason I kept you around.”

“Courier service?”

“And sex. And coffee. And hand massages.”

The water started to cool, so I turned off the shower. I dried us both with the same big towel, and Justin opened his eyes long enough to get into bed and curl into my arms. I smoothed his damp hair back from his face and he mumbled a little and kissed my chest, and I felt him fall asleep.

I was surprised when the alarm went off in the morning, to wake up with him still lying on me. Neither of us had moved in the night.

**Justin’s POV**

When I went downstairs the next day, the pile of the final Rage drawings was gone from my worktable. I’d thought I might take the day off from working, but my hand felt fine and just knowing the comic was done had given me a huge rush of energy. I ate breakfast and carried my coffee into the studio, and dropped my iPod into its dock. I turned on the latest DJ stream Alfe had emailed me, and stood in front of my easel, staring at the blank fiberglass panel.

I carried it over to my worktable, and got out my paints and brushes and the computer-generated designs I was working from, and started painting. I was careful not to overdo it, because I had to lay the wire in the paint lines before they dried, and I needed a certain amount of control to do it. So I monitored my hand carefully, and stopped and rested it as much as I could, and even drank some of my acupuncturist’s tea. I’d gotten used to the taste of it, although I didn’t like it anymore than I ever had. I’d have loved to have someone convince me it wasn’t doing any good, but I wasn’t sure what was actually helping my hand, so I was afraid to stop anything she had me doing.

I was standing there flexing my hand backwards when my cell phone rang from its charger by my computer. It was Daphne. I almost let it roll to voice mail, but I decided I’d stalled long enough. Besides, I needed to take a break and let my hand rest. I turned off the music and answered.

“Hey.”

I heard her sigh. “Hey. I thought you were never going to speak to me again.”

“I was trying to finish Rage, I just finished it last night.” I sat down at my computer and booted it up.

“Are you pissed at me?” If there’d ever been a time in our relationship when Daphne and I beat around the bush, it was so long ago I couldn’t remember.

“I kind of am.”

She didn’t say anything right away. “Because I talked to Brian?”

I shrugged, then realized that was a brilliant strategy over the phone. “Yeah.”

“Justin…. Can I come over? Or are you painting?”

I made up my mind. “My hand’s for shit, I can’t paint anymore for a while, come over.”

She sounded relieved. “Should I bring food?”

“Daph.”

“Duh. Sorry. I’ll bring food.” She hung up.

**Brian’s POV**

When I got home from work that night, Daphne’s car was in the driveway. I walked in through the kitchen, and saw signs that my stash of pot had been seriously diminished: Two empty microwave popcorn bags, a bowl of what looked like brownie batter in the sink, eggshells sitting on top of the garbage disposal drain, and half a dozen empty beer bottles.

If orange was the new blue, I guessed Justin and Daphne were the new Brian and Michael.

I took off my jacket and rolled up my sleeves. I put the eggshells down the disposal, loaded the dishwasher, put the empty bottles in the recycling bin, and wiped down the counters. Then I went upstairs, changed into my sweats, and went to the workout room.

When I was done, I went out to swim, and that’s when I found them, sitting on the edge of the pool near the steps, heads close together. Giggling. They both looked up when I walked out, and Justin’s face lit up. I loved him when he was stoned. He was even more transparent than usual.

I decided nothing too dramatic was going on if he looked that happy to see me, although Daphne was less than her usual exuberant self. I made an effort to be even more charming than I normally was.

I dropped my pants and dove in the pool naked.

When I came up for air on the other side of the pool, Justin was lying flat on his back laughing while Daphne hit him repeatedly with a little lounge pillow. I shook the water out of my hair and swam over to them innocently.

“Care to share the joke?”

Justin was laughing so hard he couldn’t answer, and Daphne was refusing to look in my direction. I laughed at them and started swimming laps. By the time I was done, they’d calmed down, and Daphne only snuck one quick look when I got out of the pool. I wrapped a towel around my hips and sat with them, taking Justin’s beer away from him and finishing it. They’d made burgers on the grill and I picked at their leftovers. I even ate a brownie when they weren’t watching.

After a while, Justin had his head in my lap and I was playing with his hair and not really listening. They’d been talking in that rambling way that seems so profound and funny when you’re stoned, and so incoherent when you aren’t, so I’d just tuned them out.

I noticed at some point they’d stopped talking. I tried to decide if it was a comfortable or uncomfortable silence, but Justin was dreamily playing with my fingers and Daphne was apparently fascinated with her toes in the underwater light of the pool water, so I relaxed.

“I think Justin’s half-asleep, Daphne, and no offense, but you’re either staying in our guest room or letting me call the car service. Pick one.”

She protested, but I ignored her, and she ended up tucked into bed on the other side of the house.

After we went to our room, Justin showed me yet again that pot made him both horny and affectionate. He was lying on his stomach and I was lying half on him, one leg thrown over his thighs and my head on his outstretched arm. He was still making occasional contented noises in his throat while I made little circles on his back with my fingertips.

“So, everything okay with you and Daphne?”

He sighed and wriggled his hips and I flattened my hand at the base of his spine. “Yeah, we talked. I was kind of mad that she asked you to let her interview you, but that’s really between you and her.”

I ignored that. “Are you going to talk to her for her thesis?”

Justin didn’t answer right away, which told me what he was going to say. When he answered, his voice was soft. “Yeah, I am. Does that bother you?”

I shrugged. “That’s between you and her.”

Justin turned over and gave me a look. “Brian.”

“You should do what you want to do.” I was up on my elbow, looking at him.

Justin had a very annoying patient look on his face. “Okay.” He put his hand behind my neck and pulled me in for a kiss. Then he turned on his side and closed his eyes, tugging on my arm so I was pressed against his back. I resisted for a second, but let myself curve around him and fall asleep.

**Justin’s POV**

I woke up late the next day, and Daphne was already gone. She’d left a note stuck to my monitor, saying she’d call later. I checked my email and saw one from Michael with the subject line, “CALL ME,” and “right away” inside.

I called the store and he picked up on the first ring. “Justin?”

“What’s up?”

“The printer sent over the two covers for us to decide on, and they need our decision by 5. Can you come by the store and look at these?”

Fuck. “I really can’t, Michael. I have a deadline, and I’ve already put too much work off for the comic.”

“Do you want me to decide?” Michael’s voice sounded doubtful, since the two of us had never agreed on a single Rage cover before. I’d won each battle so far, and contemplated giving in on this one, but I really hated the cover I knew he’d pick, even though I’d drawn it.

“Can’t you come out here?”

I could almost hear Michael frown through the phone, but after a pause he said he’d call Ben and see if he’d watch the store and let Michael use the car.

When he got there a couple of hours later, I was starting to think it was time for a break anyway. I washed my hands and brushes, blessing the inventor of acrylic paint, and Michael set the two covers side by side on the table.

We stood next to each other looking at them. One of them was Rage, standing on a very urban looking cement wall, tagged with graffiti and partially crumbling. To his right and slightly behind him was JT, and to his left in the exact same position was Zephyr. Below them, in a half-circle, were Ice Tina, the Governor, and Reverend Swineheart, and behind them were the bashers from the first issue, and behind them, a seemingly unending army of zombies.

The other one was the same basic setting, but Rage and JT were in the center, with Zephyr to the far right, somewhat in the background, turned in profile while he fought off four zombies who were attempting to climb the wall.

JT was in front of Rage, but Rage’s right arm was wrapped all the way around him, pulling him in tight. There was a strange shimmery effect around them, indicating Rage was using his powers of mind control to protect them. JT’s eyes were closed in concentration, and his arms were bent up so his hands rested on Rage’s arm. In this issue, he’d learned how to feed energy to Rage to support his powers, but he could only do it if they were actually touching.

“I know you want this one.” Michael was pointing at the one where he was kicking zombie ass.

I nodded. “All the covers have been Rage and JT. It’s tradition. It’s canonical.” Michael started to object, and I cut him off. “And Zephyr’s ass looks really great in this one, too.”

Michael burst out laughing. “Justin, do you honestly believe I’ll fall for that?”

I shrugged. “It does, though.” But I was smiling.

“The other one is more heroic looking.”

“It’s more conventional looking. This isn’t a conventional comic.”

We argued for a while, and then I won, and then Michael sighed, and we emailed the printer.

I asked if he wanted to see the tennis court that was now a dance floor, and we walked down to the outdoor Babylon Brian and Emmett were having constructed where suburban heterosexuals had once played mixed doubles. The contractors had filled in the holes left by the now-removed fence and poles, painted it all black, and built a stage at one end to house the DJ setup. Alfe was bringing his own equipment and crew. I resolutely refused to even imagine what this was costing. Two electricians were messing with the wiring, and they nodded to us as we stood there.

“Brian’s fucking insane, isn’t he?” Michael looked more impressed than disapproving when he said that, though.

“Yeah. Basically.” I probably did too.

Michael glanced over at me as we went back, using the new, meandering, and extremely picturesque path Emmett had had constructed to replace the utilitarian cement one that used to run from the pool to the tennis court. “How’s your hand?”

“If I take it easy, it’s good. I can draw for a lot longer now, sometimes a couple of hours if I pace myself. Has Brian been grilling you?”

He laughed a little. “Sort of, but also, I’ve just been paying more attention to it since he chewed me out that night.”

“Chewed you out?”

“It was just one night we were working and your hand was cramping, I guess I was supposed to use my powers of mind control to stop you.” Michael was grinning at me.

“Sorry. Sounds like JT will have to have a little chat with our hero.”

“Don’t bother, it was a while ago. It just made me notice more.”

“It’s a lot better than it used to be.”

Michael nodded. “That’s good. So, I should get back to the store before Ben convinces all my customers that they should be reading actual books instead of comics.”

“I thought he said Rage was a post-modern masterpiece?”

“I’ll tell you a little secret: I think he was lying when he said that.”

I burst out laughing.

After Michael left, I went back to work, adding lines of color and laying a few sections of wire. I carefully checked my control before each one, because I didn’t have a lot of room for mistakes; acrylic dries almost instantly. Leave it to me to think of something requiring even more fine motor control than sketching. My next painting was going to be something big and abstract, involving oil paints and canvas, and definitely not involving laying tiny little filaments of wire into wet lines of fast-drying paint.

I finally finished the last one, and smiled. Brian had promised to help me hang them that night, so I left the last one to dry and went upstairs, stripped off my paint-spattered clothes, and took a shower.

When I got back downstairs, Brian was eating Chinese food in the kitchen, leaning against the counter.

I looked at him for a minute. “You know, we have a kitchen table, a dining room table, a picnic table, and any number of sofas and chairs. And yet most of our meals are eaten standing up or on the floor. Why is that?”

He swallowed and stuck his chopsticks in the container and grabbed some chicken. “We’re guys. That’s what guys do.”

“Don’t you think Ted and Blake eat at the table? I know Ben and Michael do.”

“I wake up every day and ask myself what Ted would do, and then I do the opposite.”

I shook my head, grabbed a fork, and stood next to Brian, stealing his Chinese food. After we ate, Brian went upstairs and changed, and then came down to the studio. He helped me hang my paintings, and then climbed up on a ladder and redirected the lights the way I wanted them, so I could show them to Kalli when she got here.

I was standing there chewing my lip and thinking about having him move one of the paintings just a little to the left when he walked up behind me and put his hands on my shoulders.

“We’re not moving them again.”

“I think the upper right hand one needs to go a little to the left.”

“It’s perfect.” He kissed my hair. “You’re just being neurotic.”

“This from the man who wants all the mug handles to face the same way in the cupboard. I won’t even mention the apples.”

“All the more reason you should believe me.” He had moved an arm over my shoulder, and I rested my hands on it.

“I just want to be sure it’s right.”

Brian didn’t say anything, just stood there with me. I looked at the paintings, at the way the four pieces flowed together, like a series of very minor changes in perspective on the same object. The convergence of the grid pattern was just off enough to make it hard for the eye to resolve each field, and the colors were at the same time very pretty and light, and completely dissonant with the graphical quality of the paintings. I was glad Brian wanted to buy them for Kinnetik, because I thought all four needed to be hung together to really work.

I wasn’t really worried about what Kalli would think. When I’d done them, I had the sense I always got when something I’d visualized in my mind was taking shape just the way it was meant to, a sort of rush of certainty. Even when my hand wasn’t cooperating with my brain, I still knew.

I’d once told Brian that the feeling I got when I was drawing was like sex, when I was trying to explain how it felt when my hand was fucked up and I had to stop in the middle of something. But that wasn’t exactly true. It wasn’t just like sex, it was like sex with Brian. I wondered what he’d say now, if I told him that.

“Where’d you go?” Brian was still standing there behind me, his arm around me, his chin on my head.

I squeezed his arm with my hands and let them drop, and turned around and hugged him. “You’re right, it’s perfect.” And then we went to bed.

**Brian’s POV**

I contemplated the clock on the bedside table. It was 6:45 in the morning. Justin was sleeping next to me, apparently oblivious to the sound of the alarm.

I put on a pair of jeans and went downstairs and started the coffee. After careful consideration, I decided it wasn’t too lesbianic to bring some up to Justin before the caterers took over the kitchen.

I sat down on the bed next to him and held the coffee near his face. He opened his eyes. “You brought me coffee. In bed. Who are you and what have you done with Brian?”

“I’m just trying to get you out of bed before the house is overrun with Emmett’s catering crew.”

He sat up and rubbed his hand through his hair, and took the cup and drank some. He turned, set it down on the bedside table, and lay down again, his eyes closed. “Tell me again why I have to get up?”

I resolutely pulled the duvet off him. “Caterers.”

He grabbed at it and pulled it back over himself. “Tell me again why we’re having a party?”

I thought about it. “Fourth of July.”

“Because you’re so patriotic.” He had his eyes tightly closed and the duvet pulled up to his chin.

I rubbed between my eyes. “Okay, I think we’re out of the ‘speak now or forever hold your peace’ zone on the party.”

“It seemed like a good idea when you first thought of it.”

I nodded. “So, I was thinking.”

“I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking we have an hour before the caterers come and that’s enough time for me to blow you.” And then he opened his eyes and gave me a grin. Caffeine really was my favorite drug.

After we showered, Justin was standing at the closet staring at his clothes. He glanced at me when I stood next to him. “What are you wearing tonight?”

I gestured to the bed, where I’d thrown the jeans and shirt I planned on wearing. He looked at them, then back at the closet, biting his lip. I put my hand on the back of his neck.

“What’s the problem?”

“I suddenly realized I was going to wear a red shirt and blue jeans and I thought that was too thematic.”

“You look hot in red.”

Justin lifted his hand, which had a red t-shirt in it. I took it from him and held it up. I had fond memories of Justin in that t-shirt. And out of that t-shirt. And getting him out of that t-shirt.

“You should wear that.” I sounded decisive.

He nodded. “Pants.”

I folded my lips inward as I considered and ruled out most of Justin’s pants. I pulled his black jeans off the hanger and handed them to him.

Justin looked unconvinced. “It’s summer.”

I rolled my eyes. “You can stand there and stare, and hope that the power of your will makes a pair of white linen pants appear on your side of the closet. Or wear these.”

I left Justin to ponder the deficiencies in his wardrobe and went downstairs to see if Emmett had gotten there yet. He had, and was standing in the middle of the kitchen directing his crew to put things everywhere. I suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to get in my car and go to the loft and come back when the guests arrived. It actually seemed like a great idea, and I was about to go upstairs and see if Justin wanted to come when Emmett spotted me.

“Good. Brian. Where is the state-of-the-art food processor station you told me you had? I’ve looked everywhere, and by the way, I didn’t see any food at all, but if there’s ever a nationwide shortage of lube, I know where to come: Your kitchen.”

I put my tongue in my cheek. “You never know when something will come up that requires lubrication.”

Emmett looked into my eyes and nodded. “I understand perfectly. It’s good to be prepared. Speaking of preparation, the food processor?”

I went over to the wall, pressed on it, and it popped open, revealing a built-in food processing center.

“That’s amazing. I have just one more question.”

I raised an eyebrow.

Emmett held up one of Justin’s zip lock baggies of Chinese herbal tea. “Why do you have bags of mulch in your kitchen?”

I was definitely going to the loft.

The doorbell rang. I went to answer it, but stopped in the doorway on the way out. “Emmett, if you have a minute, Justin’s having a fashion crisis upstairs. Go tell him to wear the black jeans and get his ass down here? I think this is Kalli.”

Emmett was halfway up the stairs as soon as he heard the words “fashion” and “crisis” in the same sentence, and I went to the door and let Kalli in. She looked decidedly un-summery, in a black sleeveless blouse, an ankle-length black linen skirt, and black high-heeled sandals. I loved this girl.

Kalli’s face broke out in a big smile when I opened the door. “Brian, may I have you make all my travel arrangements from now on? The driver was the hottest thing I’ve ever seen, other than, of course, you. He, however, is both single and heterosexual. And he tells me that you have invited him to your party. I’m thinking I might have to put you in my will.”

I laughed and took her black leather overnight bag off her shoulder. “Ah yes, the wonder that is Evan. Just promise to tell me all the details, and I’ll make sure he drives you back on Sunday night, too.”

I took her upstairs and she flopped down on the bed. “This is like a five star hotel. Which is,” she said, looking at me upside down in a very Justin-like way, “where I normally stay when I travel.”

“Of course.” I was guessing, more like lots of friends’ sofas, despite the patina of New York chic she wore. I remembered her Alphabet City workspace.

We went downstairs. “I’d show you the studio but Justin would kill me, and he’s locked in our room trying to figure out what to wear to the party, even though he professed total indifference to the question until today.”

She nodded. “Yes, that’s Justin. He likes to look pretty but not if he has to do anything like shop or make a decision. It’s good a thing he’s naturally beautiful.”

“Fashion crisis solved.” It was Emmett coming down the stairs, looking pleased. “And you’ll be happy to know, Brian, we decided you were right about the black jeans.”

“Of course I was right. I always know what to put on Justin’s ass.”

“Okay, I’m going to resist the obvious response to that since there’s a lady present.” And he gave Kalli a big hug.

We were sitting out by the pool, Kalli deeply in the shade, when Justin found us. He was wearing thin sweatpants and his most paint-splotched t-shirt, which somewhat disturbingly made him look incredibly hot. He dragged Kalli off to the studio almost before he said hello, and Emmett left to check on his crew.

Kalli loved Justin’s new paintings, and tried that afternoon to convince me not to buy them. Emmett had glared at us when we tried to get into the kitchen, and finally brought us out some food, which since I’d paid for all of it, seemed only fair. He sat down with us, but every few minutes someone would come and ask him to make a decision, and eventually he didn’t come back.

Later that afternoon, I was trying to read my email. Justin and Kalli were in his studio, and his techno music was thumping in competition with the sound check going on down at the tennis court. I knew I should have gone to the loft. I wondered if it was really too late, when Justin stuck his head in. “I’m going up to get dressed, it’s after 6.”

The party didn’t start until 8, so I just nodded and told him I’d be up later. I replied to a few last minute emails from people who couldn’t follow the directions or use the map we’d sent with the invitations, and then went outside. Alfe and his assistant were deep in conversation with the electrician from Babylon, and everything looked perfect. Maybe Emmett really was worth the small fortune he was charging me. The buffet table was set up on the shady side of the patio, and it was a sleek line of chrome without a single linen tablecloth or flower in sight. And not one flag or hint of red, white, and blue.

**Justin’s POV**

Kalli was getting ready, which I knew from experience took her the better part of forever, but I’d decided to go ahead and get ready, too. I was standing in front of the mirror in the black jeans Brian had bought for me in New York, and my favorite red t-shirt. The shirt was made of some incredibly soft, light knit, and while it looked like any old red t-shirt, it wasn’t. It fit me perfectly, and felt soft on my skin. I let my hand slip under the bottom of the shirt and graze my stomach.

I heard the door open and turned around and caught Brian looking at me. His face had a sort of stunned look on it, but he didn’t say anything.

I felt a smile tugging at my lips. “What do you think?”

Brian’s lip twitched, and he looked directly into my eyes. He walked over and sat on the bed, and unbuttoned his shirt and took it off. “I told you to wear that.”

“I figure any fashion advice you and Emmett agree on must be right.” I was still idly touching my stomach, and his eyes were still following my hand. I walked close to him and stood between his legs. He was leaning back on his hands, still with that little smile on his lips.

Brian shifted forward. He pushed my t-shirt up and surprised me by just resting his face against my stomach for a minute. His hands were on my hips and his forehead was pressed against me, and then after a minute I felt his lips moving on my skin, and I shivered. He opened my jeans and started nuzzling my cock, licking at the head and sliding his hands up under my shirt and playing with my nipples.

I laughed a little when his mouth closed on my cock, but a few minutes later my knees were sagging against the bed, Brian’s hands were gripping the backs of my thighs, and my cock was buried deep in his throat while he licked and sucked my orgasm out of me. I literally fell against him after I came, and he let me slide down, his mouth finding mine.

He was leaning forward, pressing his forehead against me, his hands in my hair. I was still breathless.

“The best things happen when I let you pick out my clothes.”

He slid his hands down the side of my face and grinned at me. “You look hot in that.”

I laughed shakily. “Yeah, I kind of figured you thought so.”

I curled up between his legs and he rested his hands on my head while I licked his cock. He groaned when I locked my lips around the head and closed my fist on his shaft. I sucked and jerked him until he lifted his hips off the bed and grabbed handfuls of my hair and pulled, and then I felt him hit the back of my throat. I relaxed and then swallowed, and felt him flood into me, and I kept swallowing until he let his hips drop down. He was panting and laughing, and I kissed him, feeling his tongue inside my mouth, tasting himself.

Good thing I’d come up early.

Brian pulled on a sleeveless dark olive t-shirt and jeans, and we went downstairs. The first guests to get there were Debbie and Carl. Debbie had brought food, but Emmett, who, after all, lived with Debbie, was prepared for that, and accepted it graciously. Brian and I were sitting with them by the pool when my mom got there with Tucker, and then Daphne showed up at the same time Mel and Lindz did.

Lindsay bent down to kiss Deb, who gave her a big smack on her cheek. “Where’s Gus and my granddaughter?”

Mel snorted, and Lindsay frowned at her. “Eli and Monty have them, seeing as how Brian didn’t invite them.”

I left Brian to enjoy a rare bonding moment with Melanie, and went looking for Daphne. She was sitting on the diving board, talking to my mom, who was at a table next to it. Tucker was nowhere to be seen, but he came back with drinks for everyone after a few minutes.

“Gorgeous place,” he said politely. Tucker and I had officially buried the hatchet, but we still weren’t what you’d call friends.

“It’s a fucking palace.” Debbie sat down at the table next to my mom, who smiled.

“Every mother’s dream.”

Debbie laughed. “I never thought I’d hear anyone, certainly not you, describe Brian Kinney as a mother’s dream. At least, not that kind of dream.”

I cleared my throat. “Okay, I’m sitting right here. And you’re talking about the man I unconventionally cohabitate with.”

Daphne looked at me skeptically. “Would you point out the unconventional part, Justin?”

Debbie laughed again. “It’s the part where if he doesn’t say that, Brian glares at him.”

“Doesn’t say what?” Brian had come up behind me. “Tucker. Good to see you.”

Brian dropped a kiss on Daphne’s cheek, then my mom’s, and then Debbie’s, who slapped gently at his. “We’re just teasing Justin.”

He slid into the chair next to mine, and smiled at me. “Justin’s easy that way.”

I blushed, and everyone laughed.

The dancing wasn’t supposed to start until after 9, and we were having fireworks at midnight, but there was music and an open bar, as well as steak and lobster and six kinds of chocolate cake, including one Emmett swore had almost no fat at all. I took my plate over to where Mel and Lindz were sitting with Ben, at a candle-lit table under a tree full of tiny lights.

“Well, Brian must be happy.” Melanie was pulling lobster out of a tail with a lobster fork. “Emmett must be happy. And rich. I’ve never seen lobster at a backyard barbecue before.”

Ben laughed. “I somehow doubt Brian would describe this as a backyard barbecue.” He turned to me. “Michael says you’re working on the pieces for the show in December. How’s it going?”

We sat there talking about art, and then a little later I went looking for Kalli, but she was engrossed in conversation with some of the people from the art department at Kinnetik. I was getting restless for the dancing to start.

Daphne was still sitting with my mom, and I wondered if she was trying to get her to talk to her for her thesis. For some reason the thought made me uncomfortable. Sometimes letting other people do what they wanted to do was for shit. I had to remember to tell Brian that.

“Justin.” It was Brian’s voice, and I turned my head towards it and saw him standing in a small group with Cynthia and some clients, including Richard Bohling from New York. I walked over to join them, and Brian slid his arm around my waist. He seemed a little bit drunk, but not much. “Richard, you remember Justin?”

“Of course I do, how are you, Justin?”

Brian introduced me to his other clients, and I smiled politely while they made small talk for a while. Brian had his hand inside the back of my shirt the whole time, just resting on my bare skin.

I pulled Brian down to his outdoor Babylon the minute the dancing started. Emmett had kept it simple, just flickering lights in the trees along the path, and mostly darkness around the dance floor. They had set up a second bar, and tables. The DJ stage was edged in lights, giving it a weird upwards glow, and there were dim lights marking the edges of the old tennis court. It actually was amazingly club-like, given it was in the middle of our lawn. Although if Emmett and Brian between them couldn’t re-create Babylon anywhere, no one could.

**Brian’s POV**

It was dark and warm, and I was dancing with Justin. Only the awareness that his mother was dancing a few feet away from us with her much younger boyfriend kept my hands above Justin’s waist and mostly on the outside of his shirt.

Mostly.

Justin was kissing me when I realized he was high. I pulled away and looked into his eyes.

“Where’d you get the E?”

He laughed and blushed a little. “Out of that box in the bedroom.”

“You’re stealing my drugs?” I nuzzled his hair and he went back to kissing my neck.

“It’s in our prenuptial agreement. Your drugs are my drugs.”

“Ah.” His tongue on my throat was very distracting.

“Don’t worry, I only took a half.”

“I’m not worried. But remind me not to invite your mother out dancing with us again. It inhibits me.” Justin had his hands on my shoulders and mine were on his waist, and I’d bent my knees a little so I could say it against his ear.

He laughed, and went up on his toes to put his mouth close to my ear. “Remind me to remind you not to bring up my mother while you have your hands inside my shirt.”

After a while, Justin danced off with Kalli and Daphne, and I got a drink at the bar and stood next to the DJ stage. I was looking at the crowded dance floor when Alfe stepped down next to me.

“Who’s the little sister in the orange shirt?”

“Justin’s best friend since grade school.”

“His hag.”

I shrugged.

Alfe continued to look consideringly at Daphne. She had gone on her toes and put her hands on Justin’s shoulders and was saying something into his ear. “Is she straight?”

I took a swallow from my glass. “She is.”

“Any problem if I ask her to dance?”

“She’ll let you know if there is.”

“Justin won’t challenge me to a duel or ask my intentions?”

I laughed. “It’s Daphne you have to worry about. She’s small but deadly.”

Alfe grinned and asked his assistant, a tank-topped, tattooed blonde in a bandanna, to take over DJ duties for a while. She nodded, never taking her eyes off the sound system. Alfe headed out onto the dance floor and greeted Justin casually, resting a hand on his shoulder while being introduced to Daphne and Kalli.

I watched in admiration as Alfe gradually danced Daphne away from the group, and no one even noticed. Including Daphne, who was chattering happily with him while they danced.

“Enjoying the show?” It was Ted, a glass of something red-tinged and sparkly in his hand. I knocked back the last of my drink and shrugged.

Ted looked out at the dancers. “Alfe’s got his moves down.”

I wasn’t sure if Ted was referring to Alfe’s dancing or the fact that he was leaning down close to Daphne’s face, laughing at whatever she was saying to him.

I walked with him back over to the bar. “If anyone can take care of herself, it’s Daphne. She’s second only to Justin in determination and deviousness, and I’m not sure she’s actually second to him. I think it’s entirely possible she taught him everything he knows.”

Ted laughed. “I’d say those particular moves are somewhat familiar. Almost, dare I say it, Kinney-esque?”

“Hey.” It was Blake. He slipped his arm around Ted’s waist and kissed him. We went and sat down with Michael and Ben. Melanie and Lindsay were out on the dance floor, and I realized from the way Lindsay was writhing against Mel where the other half of Justin’s E had gone. Some things never change.

A little later, I was dancing with Michael when I felt someone bump into me from behind. It was a very flushed Justin, his hair falling in his eyes and a big smile on his face. I wrapped an arm around him and pulled him into my chest, smiling back at him. He tipped his head back and I leaned down and kissed him. His lips were still a little swollen from earlier, and I nibbled at the bottom one before we broke apart.

Justin giggled, and I looked down at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Look at Daphne and Emmett. She comes up to his waist.” I kissed the top of his head and didn’t make any jokes about height. The minute Justin’s mommy had gone home, I’d followed his example and did half a hit of E myself. And then I let him make me drink water, which amused him endlessly.

“Let’s dance some more.” I shook my head, and Justin laughed and went out and danced with Emmett and Daphne instead. I walked over to where Michael and Ted were sitting with Ben and Blake, and dropped down into an empty chair.

Emmett had abandoned Daphne to Justin, and came and flopped down in the seat next to me, dropping his head dramatically onto his arms on the table. “I have to be back here at six with the clean-up crew. Just wake me up when they get here.”

He lifted his head, and followed my eyes to Justin and Daphne. “I remember when we had that much energy.”

“Speak for yourself.” I gestured to the waiter for another scotch.

Ted laughed. “Still forever young, Brian?”

“I have enough energy to stay up past midnight dancing on a Saturday night.”

“And keep up with your horny 23-year-old?”

The waiter came back with my drink. I just smiled.

Emmett was watching us. “Who’d ever have thought that night Justin was standing under that streetlight outside Babylon, that we’d be sitting here all these years later, and the two of you would be together?”

“Justin.” Everyone turned and looked at Michael. “Justin thought it.”

I laughed.

One of Emmett’s minions came up and told him the fireworks were ready to start. I finished my drink and snagged Justin from Daphne on the way to the edge of the dance floor to watch. I was standing there with my arm around him when I suddenly had the unfamiliar thought that I was happy. Maybe it was the Ecstasy, or the fireworks, or having Babylon literally in my own backyard for the night. I pulled Justin up tight against my hip, leaning my upper body away a little. We both laughed when his feet lifted off the ground. I swung him around a little ways, and then set him down, and he turned into me, smiling. I kissed him.

He turned back around and we stood watching the fireworks. I’d had to pay someone from the fire department to observe the pyrotechnics experts, and the display was one of the things I’d used to bribe our few neighbors into overlooking the late night music. Justin had his head resting against my chest and his hands on my arms, and I felt his hair brushing against my face.

“Justin.” I said it just as there was a particularly big explosion of lights, and I wasn’t sure he heard me. But his hands squeezed on my arms, and he turned his head back towards me. I tilted my face down and kissed him, my tongue going back to trace his lower lip, and then play with his inside his mouth. The night was warm and Justin was warm, and his mouth was hot.

He turned all the way around, and put his arms around my neck and stood on his toes. Red lights showered down behind him, and he kissed me and whispered into my ear, “I love you, Brian. It’s a beautiful night. It’s perfect.”

I didn’t say anything, just smiled and kissed him again.

The fireworks finally ended, and people drifted back to the dance floor and the bar, or towards their cars. I’d promised the neighbors we’d turn off the music at 1, and a lot of the guests were going to Babylon. Alfe was already ramping down the beats per minute, and Emmett’s crew was breaking down the buffet table.

“Goodnight, Brian.” Lindsay kissed my cheek, and I gave her a hug. Melanie was standing next to her, thanking Justin for a great time, and he went off to walk them to their car. Emmett came up to me, frowning. “Brian, have you seen Daphne? I saw her run past me during the fireworks, but I couldn’t get away, and now I can’t find her. Her car’s still out there. She looked kind of upset.”

I sighed, but followed Emmett back to the pool. “Justin’s walking Lindsay and Mel to their car, see if you can find him, and I’ll check the house.”

Daphne wasn’t anywhere, but eventually I tried down behind the garage where Michael and I always went to get high. At first I thought she wasn’t there either, but then I saw her sitting on the ground, her back against the garage wall. Emmett was right. She’d been crying.

I went and slid down the wall next to her. “Hey.”

She sniffled, and I slid my arm along her shoulder. She didn’t say anything.

“What’s wrong?”

She shook her head and I sighed in frustration. Women. Tears. I needed a drink. And where the fuck was Justin? This was definitely his responsibility.

I sat there for a while without saying anything, and finally Daphne sniffled again. “I was watching the fireworks. And you and Justin looked so happy.”

“Yeah, that is bad.” I decided to try humoring her until Justin got there.

She gave a weepy little laugh. “Do you ever take anything seriously, Brian?”

I pulled away and turned and looked down at her. She was drunk, but not as drunk as I thought at first. Her hair was in ringlets on the top of her head, and her eyeliner was smeared, and even though she’d laughed, she looked upset.

I spoke carefully, not really sure what she was asking. “What the fuck’s wrong, Daphne? Give me a hint.”

“Are you still pissed I asked to interview you?”

So that’s what we were talking about. “I was never pissed. You asked. I answered. It’s over.”

She frowned at me. “It’s that simple?”

I shrugged. “It is for me.”

“Justin said you wouldn’t want to talk about it to me. How come?”

I felt tension in my jaw, and waited until it lessened to answer her. “I don’t have anything to say that you don’t already know.”

I rested my head against the garage wall, and kept my arm around her shoulders. She didn’t say anything for a long time, and I started thinking maybe we should head back to the party.

“Brian?”

I sighed. “Hmmm?”

“This isn’t for my thesis, I just want to know. Do you ever still think about it?”

“Of course I do.”

She put her head back against the wall and looked up. “Me, too.”

I looked down at her, and I could see that she was crying. I folded my lips in, and tightened my arm on her, but I didn’t know what to say. A shadow moved across the path and I looked up and saw Justin, standing over us. I wondered how long he’d been there.

“Hey.”

He hesitated, and then came and slid down the wall next to me. “What’s going on? Emmett said Daphne was upset over something, and I’ve been looking for you guys for half an hour.”

I put my other arm over Justin’s shoulder and rested my head on his. “Daphne’s a little drunk and seems to think I’m mad at her. We’re just clearing that up.”

Justin looked at Daphne across me, and bit his lip. “Daph?”

“I’m okay, Brian says he’s not pissed.”

“I told you he wasn’t.”

She just nodded. Justin stretched his hand across my lap and she grabbed it, and I sat there with my arms around the two of them, my head leaning against the wall.

**Justin’s POV**

By the time we came out, the party was pretty much over. There was a cleanup crew coming in the morning, so Emmett was catching a few hours of sleep upstairs. Kalli had gone to Babylon with Evan and some of the artists from Kinnetik.

I got Daphne settled in one of the guest rooms, and came into the bedroom. Brian was already in bed. I stripped off my clothes and climbed in next to him. He pulled me backwards against him, and rolled me over gently, kissing the back of my neck.

I felt tired, even exhausted. All I wanted was to close my eyes and go to sleep, but the minute I felt Brian’s breath on my neck, my nerve endings began to tingle and I woke up a little. There was something about the way he was touching me, something gentle but urgent at the same time, that made me wake up even more.

Brian’s hands were stroking my sides and I felt him sliding down my body. He was kissing my back and his hands were pressing my thighs open, and then he buried his face in the crack of my ass, his tongue flat and wet and hot as he dragged it across my asshole, and the minute his tongue touched it, he moaned.

I rose up a little on my knees, I couldn’t help it, but he pressed me back into the mattress, pushing my thighs apart with his elbows and pulling my cheeks open with his hands. He was flicking his tongue lightly over my opening, and then running it firmly up and down my crack, pressing his face into me hard. I could feel his breath, his stubble, the softness of his lips, all rubbing against me. I was wet from his spit, and then I felt his thumb slide down and press against the smooth spot behind my balls while he made his tongue pointed and jabbed it inside me.

I tried to lift up again, but he put his free hand on my hip and pressed, and then I felt him make his tongue flat and swipe it firmly over my hole, back and forth, and then he started swirling it just outside my opening, and pressed on my perineum again. His mouth was all over me, wet and hot, his lips and then his tongue, alternating flat and firm, then pointed and jabbing, and all the while Brian’s thumb was pressing behind my balls, his saliva coating everything and making me wet and slippery.

I was thrusting shallowly against the bed, not able to really get any kind of friction because he wouldn’t let me up. I felt waves of pleasure radiating out from my ass, but not enough to make me come. He was brushing his thumb back over my hole now every time he pressed it on my perineum, and he was feathering his fingers forward and stroking my balls. The pressure inside me was building up but there was nowhere for it to go, nothing for me to focus it on. I was shaking.

I felt him lift his head up. “Relax. Let me.” His voice was thick and I heard that same gentleness and urgency, all mixed together.

I moaned and tried to push back again, but he pressed firmly against me and made me stay where I was. I bucked a little and he laughed, his breath hot on my asshole, and then his tongue was lapping and licking at me again, and I tried to relax into it and let the feelings just flood through me.

I relaxed my hands, which were clutching at the sheets, and my breathing slowed a little, and he flattened his tongue and moved it in big circles over my hole. He was still pressing his thumb behind my balls and his other hand was still flat on my back, but I wasn’t trying to get up anymore. I couldn’t even think, and just lay there sprawled out and boneless, not aware of anything except his tongue in my ass.

He was pulsing his tongue in me, and I let it wash over me like hot water, started to feel myself floating on the sensation. He made his tongue flat and lapped at the outside of my hole again, his hands still holding me open, my legs still spread. I wanted him to fuck me but I was starting to think I could actually come like this. Every wave of feeling seemed to carry me just a little closer, and when I felt his finger pressing rhythmically on the spot behind my balls, I gave a little gasp and started to rock against the mattress.

Then the feeling started to get overwhelming, but there was still nowhere for it to go. I was saying his name and begging him to fuck me, my voice muffled in the pillow. He must have been waiting for that, because I finally felt his finger at my asshole, wet with lube, pushing inside me. He didn’t touch my prostate, which was a good thing, as I’d have probably come the minute he did.

He lay flat on me and slid his cock inside me. He still wouldn’t let me get up on my knees, and being flat on the bed made it tight, made it hurt a little. I was so crazy at that point I didn’t care, couldn’t even think about what to do, or how it felt, just tried to find a way to come. He finally let me up, and the minute my hips came off the mattress, he had his lubed hand on my cock and I was pushing back against him.

My head was down and Brian was fucking me hard, one hand on my shoulder. He was stroking his cock deliberately over my prostate while his hand moved on me, his fingers closing just enough to keep me on the edge a few minutes more. When my ass started to clamp on him, he tightened his grip, and just as I felt him start to shoot into me, I overflowed on his hand, all the sensations combining into one eruption that went on and on.

I finally finished and fell down on the bed, letting Brian pull out of me. He moved me gently off the wet spot and I curled up against him, my head on his chest, and fell asleep instantly.

**Brian’s POV**

I woke up in the morning with nothing on me but Justin. The sheet and duvet were on the floor. So were the pillows. Justin had remedied that by burrowing his head into my chest, and at some point his entire body had followed. He was lying on top of me, one hand tucked under his cheek and the other curled down under my waist.

I slid out from under him, and pulled the duvet up off the floor and covered him. After I pissed, I crawled onto the bed and leaned over and kissed him softly on the side of his face until he opened his eyes. He looked at me uncomprehendingly, and his lids started to close before his eyes even focused. I laughed and kissed him again.

“Both your hags are here, you really have to get up.”

He groaned, and kept his eyes closed.

I slapped his ass through the duvet. “I’m going down to make coffee, if you’re not down in ten minutes I’ll tell Daphne and Kalli why you’re so worn out.”

He licked his lips and yawned. “Like they don’t know.”

“They don’t know the intimate details.”

Justin smiled with his eyes closed. “Daphne does.”

I laughed. “I’ve always been afraid of that.”

I went downstairs, and found a full pot of coffee and a perfectly clean kitchen. There were no signs we’d even had a party, except for the big platter of leftover cut fruit on the island. I took a melon wedge and a cup of coffee out to the pool.

Emmett was sitting in the sun next to Daphne, and Kalli was curled up in Justin’s favorite lounge chair in the shade. Artists.

I must have grunted something vaguely like “Good morning,” because Emmett grinned at me cheerfully.

“You look like crap.”

I took a swallow of coffee. “Thanks. Fuck you.”

Kalli laughed, and Daphne giggled a little.

Emmett pushed his sunglasses back. “That’s a truly dazzling case of bed head, Brian. With a dash of just been fucked.”

I drank more coffee and sat down at the foot of an empty lounge chair. “Justin hasn’t even opened his eyes yet.”

I sat there for a while in the sunshine, and listened to the three of them talking about the party, about the food, and about the relative hotness of the guests.

I left them talking and went upstairs to check on Justin. He was sound asleep, his lashes lying on his cheeks and his lips parted just a little. I hesitated to wake him up, and then thought, what the hell. I dropped my sweats and got under the duvet behind him, putting my arm over him and my face in his hair. He didn’t wake up, but he felt soft and warm in my arms, and I smiled a little as I fell back to sleep.


End file.
